Question

As a neutral sulfur atom gains two electrons, what happens to the radius of the atom?

Answer 1

Would we not expect the radius to INCREASE upon reduction?

Explanation:

Why...well we begin with the sulfur atom, `Z=16`...now particle size is a function of nuclear charge, `Z`, and SHIELDING by other electrons.. We would expect shielding to win in this given that we have reduced the sulfur atom to give `S^(2-)`...

But as chemists, as physical scientists, we should take a good, hard, long at the data... This site tells us that the size of the sulfur atom is `100xx10^-12*m`, and that of the sulfide ion is ???