How do you calculate the number of electrons in a neutral atom?
1 Answer
Apr 25, 2015
Simply use the atoms Atomic Number.
Atoms have three sub-particles(the bits that make it up):
- Protons (which have a positive charge)
- Electrons (which have a negative charge)
- Neutrons (which have no charge)
These are sub-atomic particles, as they are the sub-particles of an atom.
An atom's atomic number tells you how many protons there are. These have positive charge.
For a neutral atom, it means there is no charge, meaning that the number of protons must be the same as the number of electrons.
This is because they both have opposite charges and if there was more of one than the other, the overall charge of the atom would not be 0, meaning it is no longer neutral.
Neutral atoms always have the same number of protons and electrons.
For Neutrons (which you probably don't need to know much about), see here.
