What is the advantage of using isotope notation instead of hyphen notation?
1 Answer
Jul 10, 2014
Isotope notation makes it easier to calculate the numbers of electrons, protons, and neutrons and to write the products of a nuclear reaction.
If you write an element as calcium-40, you can say that it has 40 nucleons. But you can't tell how many protons, neutrons, or electrons it has.
If you write it as
Here's a question: What is the product when a calcium-40 nucleus absorbs an alpha particle (a helium nucleus?
In hyphen notation,
calcium-40 + helium-4 → ?
In isotope notation,
In which case is it easier to predict that the product is