Just like the candy, which can have a bigger or smaller nut (insert joke from two paragraphs ago), carbon can have a bigger or smaller nucleus. How does this happen? By changing the number of neutrons. When you compare two atoms and they have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons, they are what’s known as isotopes. Carbon has a bunch of different isotopes but some of the more famous ones are carbon-12, carbon-11, and carbon-14. Writing their names like this, with the element’s name followed by a number, we can actually get a lot of information if we’re smart enough to understand what the hell is going on. The word carbon tells us six protons because carbon’s atomic number is six and atomic number = number of protons. The numbers eleven, twelve, and fourteen tell us the atomic mass of that isotope, which is something we actually discussed earlier when the idea of the atomic nucleus was introduced. If you already forgot what you read three paragraphs ago, the nucleus of an atom contains all the protons and neutrons, so the atomic mass is equal to the number of protons (in this case, six) plus the number of neutrons. Carbon-11 has six protons and five neutrons. Carbon-12 still has six protons but this version of carbon has six neutrons, giving a mass of twelve. Lastly for this example, carbon-14 has, you guessed it, six protons and eight neutrons.
Also for each element, you’d have to be super dumb to not notice that every element has an abbreviation. Some are (hopefully) super obvious like C for carbon, H for hydrogen, O for oxygen, etc, but others, like those for potassium and lead, are definitely not obvious. Potassium is K, from the latin word for alkali (kali) which came from an arabic word meaning “plant ashes” People back in the day would burn trees to create potash, which is a substance used both as fertilizer and in the making of cement, and that’s why we abbreviate potassium with a K. The abbreviation for lead, Pb, is from the Latin word plumbum which means, oddly enough, lead.
The last thing related to the periodic table I want to talk about is how the number of valence electrons change as you move sideways across the table. Each column is called a group and starting in group one, with hydrogen, you have one valence electron. Group two has two, then things get fucked up in the middle and that’s another something for Chemistry for Bastards to cover, then group three has three valence electrons etc all the way until you get to group eight. What makes this important is the fact that atoms with the same number of valence electrons will tend to react the same. What do I mean by react? Well…
No comments:
Post a Comment