need help with electrons and neutrons?

Question

how do i figure out how many electrons and neutrons are in an element

Answer 1

Electrons are easy, go to your nearest, handiest Periodic Table and the element number = the number of electrons = the number of protons.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table). However, Ions are atoms that have temporally collected too many electrons.

Neutrons is a lot tougher, the radioactive elements have more and isotopes have more than the normal number of neutrons. Carbon 14 is called Carbon 14 because it has 14 neutrons. It is element 6 so it only has 6 electrons.
So go to the Isotope Table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotope_table_%28complete%29
On this table the super-scripted number BEFORE the element symbol is the number of neutrons in it.

If you look at line 143-146 you will see various isotopes of Uranium. U235 is naturally occurring, but U238 is what atomic bombs use. The difference between three neutrons is an atomic explosion or not.

Answer 2

Number of electrons = atomic number = number of protons

Number of neutrons generally = atomic weight. - atomic number.