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Chemistry · Glossary

What is Nucleus and electron?

Also known as: nucleus · electron

Definition 16.1 School Chemistry — Grades 1 to 12 · Chapter 16 — Inside the Atom

Every atom has a tiny, heavy core, the nucleus, which carries a positive electric charge. Around it move much lighter particles, the electrons, each carrying the same negative charge, −e-e.

An atom, not to scale. If the nucleus were drawn the size of the red dot, the cloud of electrons would be a few hundred metres across.
An atom, not to scale. If the nucleus were drawn the size of the red dot, the cloud of electrons would be a few hundred metres across.

Examples

Example 16.9 (Isotopes of carbon and of hydrogen)

Natural carbon is about 98.9 %98.9\,\% carbon-12, X612X26212C\ce{^{12}_{6}C}, and 1.1 %1.1\,\% carbon-13, X613X26213C\ce{^{13}_{6}C}, with a trace of carbon-14, X614X26214C\ce{^{14}_{6}C}, whose slow change into another nucleus is used to date ancient wood and bones (radioactivity belongs to the physics book). Hydrogen has three isotopes: X11X2121H\ce{^{1}_{1}H}, with no neutron at all, the commonest by far; deuterium X12X2122H\ce{^{2}_{1}H}, a few atoms in every hundred thousand; and tritium X13X2123H\ce{^{3}_{1}H}.

Example 16.12 (A marble in a stadium)

If the nucleus of an atom were a marble 1 cm1\,\mathrm{cm} across, the atom would be about 1 cm×100 000=1 km1\,\mathrm{cm} \times 100\,000 = 1\,\mathrm{km} across: a marble in the middle of a huge stadium, with a few specks of dust — the electrons — whirling around the stands. Matter is mostly empty space.

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