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A charge.

Atoms are uncharged because for every electron (-ve) there is a proton in the nucleus with a positive (+ve) charge. These cancel each other out.

The charge comes from having an unequal number of electrons and protons. The number of protons always stays the same. That is what tells you what atom it is. Atoms can lose or gain an electron though. If it gains an electron then it becomes negatively charged as it has 1 more electron than protons, if it loses an electron then it becomes positively charged because it has 1 more proton than electrons.

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16y ago

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