Question

 Respond to the following based on your reading.

 1. How would you calculate the atomic mass of an atom of silver (Ag)?

 2. The element chlorine (CI) has 17 protons and 17 electrons. What happens to an atom of chlorine (CI) if it gains an electron?

 3. How does an atom differ from a molecule?

 4. How do protons, neutrons, and electrons differ?

 5. The element lithium (Li) has 3 protons and 3 electrons. The element fluorine (F) has 9 protons and 9 electrons. An atom of the element lithium (Li) transfers an electron to an atom of the element fluorine (F). Which type of bond results between the atoms, and what happens to the charges in each of the atoms? 6. Why do the minerals graphite and diamond look different even though they're made from the same element, carbon (C)?

Answer 1

1. Detailed process to find silver’s atomic mass:

We know that the atomic mass refers to the sum of subatomic particles like electrons, protons and neutrons. It is to be remembered here that the mass of electrons is very negligible. Hence in relative aspect, we can neglect the mass of electrons and account only for the masses of Neutrons and protons.

After that, we have to find out the number of protons and neutrons contained in the nucleus of the silver atom. Supposing the number of neutrons as ”x” and number of protons as “y”

Thus the atomic mass of silver would be: x*(mass of one neutron) + y*(mass of a proton)

2. A chlorine atom has 17 electrons and 17 protons. Hence it remains chemically neutral since the opposing charges cancel each other and resultant charge on the atom becomes 0

Considering it gains one electron, thus the number of electrons increases to 18 hence the chlorine becomes negatively charged (-1). Hence Chlorine becomes an “ion”

3. Atoms are considered to be the fundamental unit of the matter. Atoms as a whole remain chemically inert. Whereas molecule is an aggregation of several atoms.

E.g. Chlorine atom is the most fundamental unit of Chlorine that exist independently and has the properties of chlorine. When a large number of chlorine atom aggregates together they form chlorine molecule.

4. Protons, Neutrons and Electrons are the sub-atomic particles. They are the building blocks of the fundamental units of matter (i.e. atoms).

Protons are the positively charged particles that are present within the atom. They along with neutron form the nucleus.

Electrons are the negatively charged particles that counter protons positive charge.

Neutrons carry with themselves 0 charges but have significant mass with it. It resides in the nucleus of the atom and provides it stability.