The nucleus is made of two kinds of particles: protons, each carrying the charge , and neutrons, which carry no charge. Protons and neutrons, which have almost the same mass, are together called nucleons.
Examples
Example 16.9 (Isotopes of carbon and of hydrogen)
Natural carbon is about carbon-12, , and carbon-13, , with a trace of carbon-14, , whose slow change into another nucleus is used to date ancient wood and bones (radioactivity belongs to the physics book). Hydrogen has three isotopes: , with no neutron at all, the commonest by far; deuterium , a few atoms in every hundred thousand; and tritium .