6. Do atoms of all elements exist as independent (single) atoms? What happens under the following conditions
(a) the gain of electrons by atoms?
(b) the loss of electrons by atoms?
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Answer:
Because atoms themselves are assembled from particles that have their own properties.
They don't really care that they participate in creating atoms, that is just a kind of social phenomenon in their own society. And as you know in social phenomena relationships come and go. It just so happens that when the universe cooedl down to a reasonable kind of temperature that certain of these relationships were able to persist.
Particles have properties like mass and electrical charge and these properties are not contained in little packets, they spread out to infinity!
You see that's the thing, these things we used to think about as particles are not confined at all, they just tend to pay more attention to eacother electrically, over short distances and long times. And they don't sit in space and time like it was some kind of ocean either.
As a result at the temperatures we are used to the masses of the particles is very unbalanced but the electrical charges are equal and opposite. So we get heavy positive particles that are not so easy to move around and act as the social centre of attention and lightweight negative particles that tend to be highly promiscuous.
We call the positive plus neutral charged collected mass of particles the nucleus, and we call the promiscuous negative particles electrons and the net result of them cohabiting in the same space as to self assemble into things we call atoms.
Most of the electrons around the nucleus are actually in a stable configuration but the one or two electrons on the outside make all the difference to the relationships between the atoms, and we calll these the valence electrons.
These valence electrons give rise to most of the everyday properties of matter as we know it, including all the colour and electrical properties and the heat conductivity and the physical strength you name it.
it's amazing that so many properties and the bulk of matter can all be traced back to such simple size and scale and behaviour of a few silly particles.