How does atom size affect stability?

How does atom size affect stability?

If two similar sized atoms have different electronegativity values, the atom with higher electronegativity holds the electrons more tightly, and thus is more stable.

What happens when the atomic mass increases?

When the atomic number increases, this means that there are more protons and neutrons that add to the atomic mass of an atom. The atomic mass for any given atom mainly comes from the mass of the protons and neutrons.

Why are heavier elements more unstable?

Elements beyond uranium should become more and more unstable as they get heavier, as Coulomb repulsion starts to be stronger than the strong force that holds the nucleus together.

Why are high atomic number elements unstable?

The answer is that neutrons decay (via a weak interaction) into protons (and electrons) providing there is a spare quantum state for the proton to drop into. If this is not the case then the beta decay is “blocked” by the Pauli exclusion principle. Thus highly neutron rich nuclei will be unstable to beta decay.

Why does atomic radius decrease across a period?

Across a period, effective nuclear charge increases as electron shielding remains constant. A higher effective nuclear charge causes greater attractions to the electrons, pulling the electron cloud closer to the nucleus which results in a smaller atomic radius.

Why does the atomic mass increase down a group?

The atomic mass INCREASES as you move down a group. The number of protons and neutron in the nucleus increases. There are more protons in the atoms as you move across a period. The protons attract the electrons more in more massive atoms causing the radius to decrease.

Why stability is necessary for an element existing?

Atoms will react to get in the most stable state possible. They have the most stable configuration (full octet, no charge), so they have no reason to react and change their configuration. All other elements attempt to gain, lose, or share electrons to achieve a noble gas configuration.

How does atomic mass affect the stability of the nucleus?

Actually, as atomic mass increases the stability of the nucleus increases, but after a while they become too heavy and the stability decreases. The graph above shows how the energy changes with atomic number. Note that the energy axis goes the other way to the way you would expect.

Why doesn’t increasing atomic number equal to increasing mass?

The reason increasing atomic number doesn’t always equate to increasing mass is because many atoms don’t have the same number of neutrons and protons. In other words, several isotopes of an element may exist.

How do you calculate binding energy per nucleon and nuclear stability?

Binding Energy Per Nucleon And Nuclear Stability. Binding Energy Per Nucleon And Nuclear Stability (You Are Here!) The binding energy per nucleon of a nucleus is the binding energy divided by the total number of nucleons. Measure of stability of the nucleus.

How does the number of protons affect the mass of an atom?

She has taught science courses at the high school, college, and graduate levels. Since atomic number is the number of protons in an atom and atomic mass is the mass of protons, neutrons, and electrons in an atom, it seems intuitively obvious that increasing the number of protons would increase the atomic mass.

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