Introduction to

Radioactivity
 Within an atom we find a ‘nucleus.’ Inside the nucleus, an atom stores its protons and neutrons.

 We can see in the above image that the negative electrons revolve around the particles of the
nucleus. We call these particles ‘nucleons.’
 We are already aware that protons are positive, electrons are negative and neutrons have no charge,
but let us consider the similarities between these particles.
 Protons and neutrons have the same mass and are about 2000 times heavier than electrons.
 Protons and electrons have the same strength of charge, but one is positive and the other negative. Their
charges are equal.
 These similarities allow us to make important assumptions about the way these
subatomic particles influence and change an atom.
 Atoms are naturally neutral, as the number of protons and electrons are the same, but adding
or subtracting protons or electrons from an atom changes the total charge on it, making it
positive or negative. Usually, adding or subtracting an electron is much easier than adding or
subtracting a proton, so most changes occur through number of electrons.
 Adding or subtracting an electron doesn’t have a big impact on mass though, since electrons
are so light, relatively. Adding or subtracting protons or neutrons though, has a big impact on
the mass of an atom making it much heavier or lighter.
 In your textbooks, at the top of page 222, you’ll find a table listing relative properties of these
subatomic particles which summarizes these points.
 An atom of a certain element will always have a certain, equal number of protons and
electrons. Atoms of different elements contain different numbers of subatomic particles
than each other. For example, hydrogen contains 1 proton, electron and neutron each
while helium has two each. This point is illustrated in figure 22.3 on page 223 of your
textbooks.
 Consider the following figure:

 This shows how we represent elements as symbols. The X shows the symbol for the
element, for example carbon is a capital C.
 The capital A in the figure is the atomic mass or mass number, which shows the
combined number of protons and neutrons.
 The capital Z is the atomic number which is the number of protons. We use the number
of protons rather than electrons since it’s harder to change the number of protons and so
the value is more likely to stay constant.
 An atom is necessarily neutral; it has the same number of positive and negative charges.
 Consider in the previous figure. The atom shown has 3 protons and 3 neutrons, meaning
it has +3 charge from the protons and -3 from the electrons for a total of zero charge,
making the atom neutral.
 Imagine what would happen if:
 A proton was removed?
 A proton was added?
 An electron was removed?
 An electron was added?
 What if it had been two of each?
 When a proton or an electron is added to or removed from an atom, it gains a negative
or positive charge. We now call it an ion.
 When we start adding or removing neutrons, we create what is called an isotope. An
isotope of an element has a different mass number from its base atom.
 Consider figure 22.4 on page 223 of your textbooks. We first see base hydrogen, with
one proton and one electron. Next to that we see the first isotope of hydrogen which
has one neutron and the next isotope with two neutrons after that.
 Remember, electrons are very light, so added or removing them from an atom has a
very tiny effect on the atoms mass. Protons and neutrons are 2000 times heavier than
that, so once we start adding them to make an isotope, the particle begins to get much
heavier.
 When an isotope becomes too heavy, it becomes unstable and starts to emit particles.
At this point, we say the particle has become radioactive.