Habibu Abdullahi Muhammad

Badala Academy Secondary School Azare.

E-mail address: Habibuabdullahi25@yahoo.com
Contact Numbers: +256780983362, +2348032721286.

Physical Chemistry
Definition of an atom:
Although, the word atom is from Greek `atom` which means indivisible hence,
the word atom can be define as an indivisible smallest particle of an element which are
the basic unit of matter. An atom consist of electrons surrounding the nucleus that
contain proton and neutrons.

It`s Composition:
Undeniably, all atoms consist of three particles which are: the protons, electrons
and neutrons. Protons have a (Relative charge +1), electrons have a (relative charge -1)
and neutrons which are neutrally charge, that is they have no charge at all. The number
of protons in atom is the atomic number in the periodic table. Atoms are arranged in
atomic numbers.

Electron -1
So you could think of an electron as the negative half of a photon. Most of these
electrons and positrons eventually lost energy and hooked back up into photons again,
but some of the positrons got lost somewhere, and their electrons were left on their own.
The electrons didn't like being on their own, so they hooked up with some protons in
the same situation, and these were the first hydrogen atoms. A hydrogen atom has just
one proton and one electron, but soon the stars started to make more complicated atoms,
with many protons and electrons, like oxygen, carbon, sulphur and iron. Inside these
more complicated Atoms, the electrons don't just rush around any which way. They
have to stay inside specific areas of the atom, which we call shells. This is the easiest
way for atoms to hold together, so that's what they do. Each shell can only hold a certain
number of electrons, like an egg carton can only hold a certain number of eggs. The
first shell (the one closest to the protons at the center of the atom) can only hold two
electrons. If there are more than two electrons, they have to start a second shell further
away from the center. That second shell is bigger, and it can hold eight electrons.
Uranium atoms, the biggest atoms in nature, have 92 electrons, and they need seven
shells to hold them all. Often an atom runs out of electrons when its outermost shell
(what scientists call the valence shell) isn't full. Oxygen atoms, for instance, have eight

Habd.

electrons. They fill up the inner shell with two electrons, and then there are only six
electrons in the outer shell, which has room for eight electrons. Because of that, oxygen
atoms join up easily with other atoms, like hydrogen, that also have spaces in their
valence shells. The atoms form a molecule by sharing electrons, and they use these
shared electrons to fill up their valence shells. The molecule becomes stronger and more
stable than any of the individual atoms would have been on its own. When one oxygen
atom combines with two hydrogen atoms (H2O), they make molecules of water. Other
atoms prefer to give their electrons to another atom, rather than sharing the electron.
Sodium, for instance, has only one lonely electron in its valence shell. If it could just
get rid of that one electron, then it could get rid of that shell, and the next one in would
be full. But chlorine has seven electrons in its valence shell, and it needs eight to fill it
up. So whenever sodium gets near chlorine, the sodium atoms give their extra electron
to the chlorine atoms. You might think they would then go on about their own business.
But the electrons still hold onto their original atoms too, so the sodium and chlorine
atoms form a molecule together called sodium chloride - or salt.

Proton +1
A proton is a subatomic particle found in the nucleus of every atom. The particle has a
positive electrical charge, equal and opposite to that of the electron. If isolated, a single
proton would have a mass of only 1.673? 10-27 kilogram, just slightly less than the mass
of a neutron. The number of protons in an element's nucleus is called the atomic
number. This number gives each element its unique identity. In the atoms of any
particular element, the number of protons in the nuclei is always the same. An atom of
simple hydrogen has a nucleus consisting of a single proton all by itself. The nuclei of
all other elements nearly always contain neutrons in addition to protons. Protons need
not be confined to the nuclei of atoms. When protons are found outside atomic nuclei,
they acquire fascinating, bizarre, and potentially dangerous properties, similar to those
of neutrons in similar circumstances. But protons have an additional property. Because
they carry an electric charge, they can be accelerated by electric and/or magnetic
fields. High-speed protons, and atomic nuclei containing them, are emitted in large
numbers during solar flares. The particles are accelerated by the earth's magnetic field,
causing ionospheric disturbances known as geomagnetic storms.

Neutron (neutral)
The only example of stable matter that does not include neutrons is the hydrogen atom.
The neutron was discovered in 1932 by James Chadwick who was working at
Cambridge University, England. Chadwick had been working with Ernest Rutherford
who had found evidence for the proton in 1919 and then (in 1920) suggested that a
particle such as the neutron might exist because the disparity between the atomic
number of an atom and its atomic mass could be explained by the existence of a
neutrally charged particle within the atomic nucleus. A neutron is a tiny particle like
a proton, smaller than an atom. Like protons, neutrons are too small to see, even with

an electron microscope, but we know they must be there because that's the only way we
can explain how atoms behave. All neutrons, everywhere in the universe, are exactly
the same, and pretty much all of them are inside atoms. Like protons, neutrons first
formed out of bosons, in the earliest moments of the Universe after the Big Bang.
Neutrons are actually made of even smaller invisible particles, called quarks. Like
protons, each neutron is made of three quarks, but neutrons are made of two down
quarks and one up quark. A strong nuclear force sticks the quarks together. Most of the
mass of a neutron comes from this strong nuclear force, rather than from the quarks.
Because a neutron has two down quarks and only one up quark, it has no electrical
charge.
Neutrons are part of the nucleus, or center, of an atom. The simplest atoms - hydrogen
atoms - have a nucleus made of just one proton, with no neutron. But most atoms have
more than one proton, and they need neutrons to help the strong nuclear force stick the
protons together. Most atoms have about the same number of neutrons as protons, but
some have more neutrons than protons. Neutrons also have an important role to play in
neutron stars. In a neutron star, there's so much pressure that the protons and electrons
in the star mix together and form neutrons (because adding an electron to a proton makes
it into a neutron). So the neutron star is full of neutrons. Because neutrons have neither
positive nor negative charge, they don't push each other apart, and they can pack very
closely together, making an extremely dense star.

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Habd.