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Chemistry · Glossary

What is Proton, neutron, nucleon?

Also known as: proton · neutron · nucleon

Definition 16.3 School Chemistry — Grades 1 to 12 · Chapter 16 — Inside the Atom

The nucleus is made of two kinds of particles: protons, each carrying the charge +e+e, 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 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}.

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