What Are Sub-atomic Particles And Their Charges & Masses?

In terms of understanding the structure of an atom and the sub-atomic particles that make up an atom, it can sometimes be confusing for students at GCSE level. In this short article, I will try and explain this to simply the understanding of this content.Atoms are the building blocks of matter. Matter is any physical subtance in the universe, either being a solid, liquid or a gas (the 3 states of matter). For example, humans are matter (living matter), a chair is matter, a candle is matter and the ocean is matter. All of these physical objects that occupy some space in the universe is defined as being matter. Making up all of these objects are atoms. Atoms are at the centre of the physical universe, and at GCSE, you need to be able to define the structure of the atom and state the 3 sub-atomic particles that exist in an atom. An atom is best thought of as a spherical ball in the middle surrounded by lots of rings. The nucleus of the atom is the central part of the atom and is represented by a "circle" in most diagrams. Anything inside this spherical ball (within the atom) is called the atomic nucleus. The nucleus is said to be POSITIVELY charged. It houses 2 of the 3 sub-atomic particles. This leads to the question "What is a sub-atomic particle?". Sub-atomic particles are small particles that exist and make up an atom. They are called Protons, Neutrons and Electrons. 2 of the 3 sub-atomic particles are located in the nucleus of the atom protons and neutrons. The nucleus in comparison to the rest of the atom is very small but it is actually the heaviest part of the atom.In chemistry terms, it is the smallest yet the densest part of the overall atom. In actual fact, most of the mass of the entire atom is located in the nucleus. With all the protons and neutrons being located in the small and dense nucleus of the atom, most of the remaining part of the atom is simply just empty space. In reality, this is not specifically true but at GCSE, it is a good premise to introduce the basic structure of the atom. The 3rd sub-atomic particle is the electron, which have a negative charge. Circulating around the atom in a spherical like pattern is one or more electron. OPPOSITE charges ATTRACT one another. Using this law, we can say that NEGATIVELY charged particles are ATTRACTED to POSITIVELY charged particle. So in terms of an atom, NEGATIVELY charged electrons are attracted to POSITIVELY charged protons in the nucleus. As neutrons have a neutral charge, they have little influence on the interaction between protons and electrons.Electrons are not found inside the nucleus as once thought in the Plum Pudding Model. Instead, they move around the nucleus in a spherical like pattern. Another word for this is they orbit around the nucleus the reason why they do this is because being negatively charged, they are attracted towards the positive charge of the nucleus.

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Cameron.