Neutrons are neutral, as its name implies. A stable atom has a net charge of 0. In other words, it has an equal number of protons and electrons. The positive protons cancel out the negative electrons.

Protons are about 99.86% as massive as neutrons according to the Jefferson Lab. The number of protons in an atom is unique to each element.

Given that protons are subatomic particles at the very heart of an atom, they are therefore extremely small, measuring just hundreds of trillionths of a meter (10^–15 meters).

Try to keep the same number of neutrons and protons as you build your atom. If the imbalance is too great, radioactive decay will occur. Carbon-14, to take one example, is unstable.

The number of protons in an atom of any given element is always the same. Physicists call this the atomic number.

Mass number and atomic number Protons and neutrons are the heaviest particles in an atom and as a result they make up most of the mass of the atom. The mass of electrons is often not considered to ...

The number of protons in an atom determines whether it is hydrogen, carbon, oxygen or uranium. They make up more than 86 per cent of the visible matter in the universe by mass, and they are ...

The periodic table contains a wide array of elements, numbered from one (hydrogen) to 118 (oganesson), with each number representing the number of protons stored within an atom's nucleus ...

This is a strontium atom, which has 38 protons; the diameter of a strontium atom is a few millionths of a millimeter.

Scientists have long wondered whether there is a limit to the number of protons and neutrons that can be clustered together to form the nucleus of an atom. A new study comes closer than ever to ...