Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Isotopes and Atoms

Atomic Number
-Atomic number=number of protons
atomic mass - atomic number = number of neutrons

Isotopes
-Same atomic number but different mass
For example there are 3 types of hydrogen atoms
1H                  2H                  3H
-Not all atoms of the same element are identical

Mass Spectrometers
-Are used to determine the abundance and mass of the isotopes of elements
-A device known as a mass spectrometer can be used to determine the relative abundance and the mass of the isotopes in an element
-Isotopes are elements that have the same atomic number(same element) but different atomic masses

Helpful links
Isotopes and atoms
http://www.chem4kids.com/files/atom_isotopes.html
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/I/isotope.html
Mass spectrometer
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/magnetic/maspec.html

1 comment:

  1. This is a bit tricky because 1H isn't refering to protium. If your going to write this out you'll need to find a way to make the 1 superscriped. Its really important to distinguish this from a balancing coefficient.

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