What in neutral atom
Answers
Atoms are neutral; they contain the same number of protons as electrons. ... When an ion is formed, the number of protons does not change. Neutral atoms can be turned into positively charged ions by removing one or more electrons. A neutral sodium atom, for example, contains 11 protons and 11 electrons.
Answer:
The number of electrons or protons present in a neutral atom is called atomic number. It is represented by Z.
Electrons and protons are charged particles. The electrons have negative charge, while protons have positive charge. A neutral atom is an atom where the charges of the electrons and the protons balance. Luckily, one electron has the same charge (with opposite sign) as a proton.
Example: Carbon has 6 protons. The neutral Carbon atom has 6 electrons. The atomic number is 6 since there are 6 protons.
Here, a "neutral atom" is simply an atom that has no charge.
See, an atom consists of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons are positively charged, electrons are negatively charged (with the same magnitude of charge per particle as a proton). Neutrons have no charge.
Now, in a "neutral atom", the number of protons must be equal to the number of electrons, otherwise it would not be neutral.
Basically, the definition is saying that "in a neutral atom, the atomic number is equal to both the number of protons , and the number of electrons, because, well, they both are the same."
An ion is an atom or molecule in which the total number of electrons is not equal to the total number of protons, giving it a net positive or negative electrical charge
Here, the atomic number cannot be equal to both--because they are unequal. In this case, a better definition would be:
The number of protons present in an atom is it's atomic number. It is represented by Z.