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What determines the vast majority of characteristics in an atom?
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
It is often said that electrons give atoms their own peculiar 'personality'. Since potassium has one outer electron/valence electron, it tends to lose it and thus render the atom a cation. Fluorine on the other hand needs one electron to fill up its valence shell and so gains an electron, yielding an anion.
The number of electrons in the valence shell determines the reaction-'personality' of an atom. Nitrogen requires three electrons in its valence shell to fill it up (obey the octet rule) and this can be easily done by bonding with 3 hydrogens.
Carbon, to obey the octet rule, needs 4 electrons. It binds in a myriad of ways - in organic chemistry - to hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen....
Carbon is said to be hugely 'promiscuous'. It has the ability to bind with so many atoms in so many ways. Carbon is the backbone of carbon chains (with hydrogen: hydrocarbons), strings of carbon atoms that form phospholipids and nucleic acids, the stuff of life. All this bonding and chain forming is determined by the 'personality' giving electrons.
But there are also the nuclear nucleons (protons and neutrons) to consider. The more protons, the greater the attraction to the electrons. This is unless an outer shell has a single electron (like lithium or potassium) in which case the electron is still free to rush away from the attractive nucleus, increasing the area it is likely to exist in and in effect enlarging the atom. The greater the number of electrons in an outer shell (like fluorine) the more effect the nucleus has - a summing effect on all the electrons and effectively shrinking the atom due to the summed nuclear effect on the electrons.
Neutrons give the 'isotope' personality. The greater the number of neutrons the greater the mass of the atom. All atoms of a single element differ not in the number of protons (for example all iron atoms always have 26 protons and all uranium atoms always have 92 protons) but may differ in the number of neutrons. Instability is gleaned in a nucleus if too many neutrons are present. An unstable nucleus is a radioactive nucleus. For example the carbon isotope Carbon-14 has the most neutrons of any carbon isotope and is thus the unstable one.
Electrons, protons and neutrons all give characteristics to differing atoms. Since all elements differ in their neutron, electron and proton numbers, each element gleans its characteristics from this. Its atoms gain their own identity!
Wiki User
∙ 13y ago
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