what is an atom?what are the properties of an atom?

Answer 1

The atom is the fundamental building block of all stuff, or what scientists like to call "matter". An individual atom is very small. In fact, the smallest type of atom, hydrogen, has a diameter of 10-8 cm. This means that if the hydrogen atom was the size of a soccer ball, then a soccer ball would be 6450 kilometers (4008 miles) high. Every single object is composed of atoms. Your body is made up of many, many individual atoms. There are also many different types of atoms. In fact, there are over a 100. These different types are called elements. Examples of some elements are hydrogen, oxygen, iron, copper, and helium. Under normal conditions many atoms can stick together to form larger, different stuff. Scientists call material that results from the joining of different types of atoms "compounds". An example of a compound is water, which is a group of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Notice that we said that these types of compounds can only form under what we called "normal conditions". In the type of environment in which nuclear fusion occurs, the joining of atoms, also known as bonding, can't happen.

So, are atoms made of even smaller stuff? The answer to this question is yes. Atoms are mostly empty space, but in the center of the atom is a structure called a nucleus. The nucleus is a congregation of particles. These particles are called protons and neutrons. Neutrons are neutral, or have no electrical charge. Protons, however, carry a positive electrical charge of 1. So, in a carbon atom, which has 6 protons in its nucleus, the overall electric charge of the nucleus would be 6. However, a regular atom is electrically neutral. This is because swirling around the nucleus in what is called the "electron cloud". The electrons in the electron cloud counteract the positive charges of the protons in the atomic nucleus with their negative electrical charges. This generates the neutral charge of the atom. The number of electrons and number of protons correlate in a one to one ratio. This means that there are the same number of protons and electrons in one atom. So, if an atom has 6 protons, like carbon, it will also have 6 electrons. The 6 electrons each have a charge of -1. This means that the total charge of all the electrons is -6, or -1x6. The charge of carbon's nucleus is 6 (from the protons), so when you add the two: 6 + -6, you get 0, which means that the atom, overall, has no charge.

Answer 2

The most basic atom would consist of one proton and one electron. This would be a hydrogen atom. The proton which has a positive charge is in the middle while the electron (negative charge) spins around the nucleus at tremendously fast speeds (20000 km/s). You can never know where the electron is with certainty though but instead can only find the probability of which regions its most likely to be in.

An atom is said to be 99.999999999999% empty space. That is like putting a small pee in the middle of a huge baseball stadium. The pee would be the proton (nucleus) and the electron is somewhere in the baseball stadium. The electron is also so much more smaller than a proton.

Alot of atoms have multiple protons and neutrons (these have no charge at all) The protons you'd think would all repel each other since they are binded together but they are held together by the strong nuclear force which acts like a glue in binding nuclei. Atoms can also have many electrons with different orbits, energy levels.

An atom is one of the smallest building blocks of all matter. You can only see in in a sense with advanced electron microscopes. But these don't even show us a clear picture.

It's hard to say how big an atom is since there is no real limit to where its electron can be but on average you can say its 50 pm where 1 pm = 1x10^ -12 meters. Yes very tiny.

There is so much more about atoms. I've told you nothing compared to how much more there is to know.

Answer 3

Property Of An Atom

Answer 4

An atom is the smallest piece of matter (stuff as we know it) that can retain charge neutrality. The parts of an atom are electrically charged. The exchange of atoms is the basis of chemistry. A stable combination of atoms is a molecule. A substance that consists of only one type of atom is known as an element, or more specifically a chemical element.

Atoms consist of a positively charged core, called the nucleus. It is much smaller than an atom. Most of the volume of the atom is occupied by electrons. The electrons are best described as clouds surrounding the nucleus. Each electron is in a particular state, with particular energy, angular momentum. The outermost electrons are the ones involved in binding atoms together.

Answer 5

Atoms are the basic unit of matter; more properly, the smallest unit of a chemical element having the properties of that element.

The atom consists of a central, positively charged core, the nucleus, and negatively charged particles called electrons that are found in orbits around the nucleus.

Almost the entire mass of the atom is concentrated in the nucleus, which occupies only a tiny fraction of the atom's volume. The nucleus of an atom consists of neutrons and protons, the neutron being an uncharged particle and the proton a positively charged one. Their masses are almost equal. Atoms containing the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons represent different forms, or isotopes, of the same element.

Surrounding the nucleus of an atom are its electrons; for a neutral atom, the number of electrons is equal to the atomic number. The outermost electrons of an atom determine its chemical and electrical properties. An atom may combine chemically with another atom in various ways, either by giving up or receiving electrons, thus setting up an electrical attraction between the atoms (see ion), or by sharing one or more pairs of electrons (see chemical bond). Because metals have few outermost electrons and tend to give them up easily, they are good conductors of electricity or heat (see conduction).

The electrons are often described as revolving about the nucleus as the planets revolve about the sun. This picture, however, is misleading. The quantum theory has shown that all particles in motion also have certain wave properties. For a particle the size of an electron, these properties are of considerable importance. As a result the electrons in an atom cannot be pictured as localized in space, but rather should be viewed as smeared out over the entire orbit so that they form a cloud of charge. The electron clouds around the nucleus represent regions in which the electrons are most likely to be found. The shapes of these clouds can be very complex, in marked contrast to the simple elliptical orbits of planets. Surprisingly, the sizes of all atoms are comparable, in spite of the large differences in the number of electrons they contain.

Answer 6

Atoms are the basic units of matter and the defining structure of elements. Atoms are made up of three particles: protons, neutrons and electrons. Atoms are the basic building blocks of ordinary matter. Atoms can join together to form molecules, which in turn form most of the objects around you.

Atoms are composed of particles called protons, electrons and neutrons. Protons carry a positive electrical charge, electrons carry a negative electrical charge and neutrons carry no electrical charge at all. The protons and neutrons cluster together in the central part of the atom, called the nucleus, and the electrons 'orbit' the nucleus. A particular atom will have the same number of protons and electrons and most atoms have at least as many neutrons as protons.

Protons and neutrons are both composed of other particles called quarks and gluons. Protons contain two 'up' quarks and one 'down' quark while neutrons contain one 'up' quark and two 'down' quarks. The gluons are responsible for binding the quarks to one another.

Answer 7

Atoms are the main building blocks of matter. Every object in the universe is made of atoms. Atoms are very small. Hence, we cannot see it directly with ours eyes. Its consists of three particles: electrons, protons, and neutrons. Electrons are negatively charged, protons are positively charged and neutrons have no charge (neutral).

The strong nuclear force between the protons and neutrons makes them stick together to form an nucleus. Neutrons in the nucleus have no charge. Hence, the overall charge of a nucleus is positive. We know that, if oppositely charged particles are placed close to each other they get attracted. Hence, the electrons are continuously orbit the nucleus due to the electrostatic attraction between them.

Answer 8

an atom is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. it has a center that is made up of protons and neutrons all clumped together. think of that as the the earth. electrons are little crap that orbit the center of the aton (the nucleus: ie. the clump of protons and neutrons) think of the electrons as satellites orbiting earth.

the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons differ from each atom. this difference is why we have elements. Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, silicon, gold, silver, lead. everything in the peridoic table. those are elements. each elements have a different number of protons, neutrons and electrons. because of this difference in numbers, the properties differ for each atom of each element. if you want to know the actual property of an atom, you must know how many protons, neutrons, or electrons are in it

Answer 9

An atom is the smallest particle of an element that can exist. an atom consits of protons which are postively charged, neutrons which are neutral and electrons which are negatively charged.Molecules are made up of atoms.

Answer 10

An atom is the smallest part of an element that still retains the qualities of that element. It consists of electrons, neutrons and protons in varying amounts.