This post highlights the fundamental knowledge and key skills that form the basics of radioactivity. There is also a short online test for you to check your understanding. The first things you need to know are descriptions of the atom (how models have changed with time) and what causes "radioactivity". These two fundamentals are covered … Continue reading Radioactivity: Basics and Test
Isotopes
We have previously seen (in this post) that an element always has a fixed atomic number but its atoms can have different atomic mass values. This is because most elements can exist in different forms with different numbers of neutrons - but always the same number of protons and electrons. These different forms are known … Continue reading Isotopes
Atomic Number and Atomic Mass
When you learned about the Periodic Table during KS3, you were told that it lists all the elements in order of their atomic number. You should also have learned that every element has two numbers; the smaller value is the element's atomic number and the larger value is the element's atomic mass. The value for … Continue reading Atomic Number and Atomic Mass
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