6 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Ask Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology
To my understanding, all protons are identical, all electrons are identical, all neutrons are identical... every type of unchanging aspect of their behavior and what they're made of is identical: their rest energy, their charge, their weight, etc.
The number of protons is what makes an element, the atom's main identity.
Neutrons act like filler between protons which are positively charged (edit: the types of quarks in neutrons add up to a neutral charge, also each of the neutrons offers its own strong force bonding). And the amounts of neutrons affect the atom's stability and sometimes also certain aspects, particularly in hydrogen with one neutron (heavy hydrogen) vs with two neutrons (tritium) in their differing uses for nuclear fusion, for example.
Electrons with their negative charges will balance the positive charges of an equal amount of protons in an atom, but not always perfectly for every type of atom, and so from that imperfection the electrons are able to bond together atoms to form into molecules. The reasons go deeper into chemistry and if you want to explore into that further, you could start by looking up an explainer on covalent bonds and ionic bonds.
Comment by onephatkatt at 12/03/2025 at 21:45 UTC
1 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Do you think we'll ever turn platinum or mercury into gold?