Question

Briefly describe

(a) the law of conservation of mass

(b) Rutherford’s nuclear atom

(c) weighted-average atomic mass

(d) a mass spectrum

 

Answer 1

(a) The total mass of substances present after the chemical reaction is the same as the total mass of substances before the chemical reaction. More universally, mass is neither created nor destroyed, but converts from one form to another.

(b) Rutherford’s model of the atom postulates the existence of positively charged fundamental particles at the nucleus of the atom.

(c) An average value used to express the atomic mass of an element by taking into account the atomic masses and relative abundances of all the naturally occurring isotopes of the element.

(d) A spectrum showing the mass/charge ratio of various atoms in a matrix