Chapter 22

The nuclear atom

IN THIS CHAPTER YOU WILL:

• describe the structure of the atom

describe the alpha scattering experiment which provides evidence for

the nuclear atom

• name and state the mass and charge of the particles in the nucleus
• ZX
represent nuclei in the form A
• explain what isotopes are

describe fission and fusion reactions.

Getting started
With a partner, spend two minutes making notes on what you know about
atoms. Include a sketch of an atom.
Now discuss these statements and decide which are true and which are
false:
• Atoms are the smallest particles there are.
• There are 92 different types of atom.
• Most of the mass of an atom is in the nucleus.
• Atoms have no charge.

DANGEROUS DISCOVERIES

Figure 22.1a: New understanding of the structure of the atom lead to the
development of the nuclear bomb. b: Lise Meitner was the first person to
describe nuclear fission but did not share in the Nobel prize awarded for
this discovery.

The early 20th century was an exciting time to be a physicist. The idea of
atoms had been around since Democritus in ancient Greece, but now huge
strides were being made in understanding how atoms were made up. Ernest
Rutherford had described a new model of the atom, containing a tiny, dense
nucleus and the particles in the nucleus were identified.
These discoveries were being made alongside the rise of fascism in Europe
which lead to the Second World War. German physicist Otto Hahn split a
uranium nucleus and found barium in the debris of his experiment. Lise
Meitner, a Jewish colleague of Hahn, working in exile in Sweden,
explained the process and called it nuclear fission. Hahn was later awarded
the Nobel prize for this discovery. Nuclear fission releases a huge amount
of energy and the Hungarian scientist, Leo Szilard, also working in exile,
realised that this could be used to make a bomb. The fear was that Nazi
scientists would create this bomb, allowing them to win the war.
Szilard enlisted the help of Einstein in writing to the US president to
persuade him of the necessity of developing the bomb before the Nazis did.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor the USA joined the war. Within a year
the Manhattan Project successfully produced the chain reaction needed for
the bomb. In 1945, bombs were dropped causing thousands of deaths in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the Manhattan Project team who developed
the bomb, described it using words from the Bhagavad Gita, ‘Now I am
become Death, the destroyer of worlds’. After the end of the Second World
War, Oppenheimer campaigned for international cooperation to limit the
proliferation of nuclear arms.
There are now about 27 000 nuclear bombs in the world.
Discussion questions
1 To what extent are scientists responsible for the ways in which their
discoveries are used?
2 Should the nuclear physicists have destroyed their research when they
realised how destructive it could be?
22.1 Atomic structure
At one time, physics textbooks would have said that atoms are very tiny, too tiny
ever to be seen. Certainly, a single atom is too small to be seen using a
conventional light microscope. But technology now allows us to see into the
atom. There is more than one kind of microscope that can be used to show
individual atoms. Figure 22.2 shows a photograph made using a scanning
tunnelling microscope. The picture shows silicon atoms on the surface of a
crystal of silicon (the material that transistors and computer chips are made
from). The diamond shape shows a group of 12 atoms. The whole crystal is
made up of vast numbers of groups of atoms like this.

Figure 22.2: Individual silicon atoms (bright spots, artificially coloured by a

computer) on the surface of a silicon crystal, observed using a scanning
tunnelling microscope. The diamond shape (which has been drawn on the image)
indicates the basic repeating pattern that makes up the crystal structure of
silicon. In this photograph, the silicon atoms are magnified 100 million times. (A
good light microscope can only magnify by about 1000 times.) Roughly
speaking, 4 000 000 000 atoms would fit into a length of 1 metre.
In 1909, Ernest Rutherford and his colleagues discovered that every atom has a
tiny central nucleus. This gave rise to the ‘solar system’ model of the atom
shown in Figure 22.3. In this model, the negatively charged electrons orbit the
positively charged nucleus. The electrons are attracted to the nucleus (because of
its opposite charge), but their speed prevents them from falling into it.

Figure 22.3: The nuclear model of the atom. Six electrons are illustrated
orbiting a nucleus made up of six protons and six neutrons.

Forming ions
An atom has equal amounts of positive and negative charge so is neutral overall.
Electrons can be gained or lost by atoms relatively easily, for example by
rubbing an insulator as we saw in Chapter 17. This leads to the formation of ions
in a process called ionisation. An atom which gains an electron has more
negative than positive charge and so becomes a negative ion. An atom which
loses an electron is left with more positive than negative charge and so becomes
a positive ion.

Discovering the nucleus

Electrons were discovered in 1896 by the English physicist, J. J. Thomson. He
realised that electrons were much smaller and lighter than atoms. (We now know
that the mass of an electron is about 1 of the mass of a hydrogen atom.)
1836
He guessed, correctly, that electrons were part of atoms.
Other scientists argued that, since electrons had negative charge, there must be
other particles in an atom with an equal amount of positive charge, so that an
atom has no overall charge – (it is neutral). Since electrons have very little mass,
the positive charge must also account for most of the mass of the atom. Figure
22.4 shows a model that illustrates this. The atom is formed from a sphere of
positively charged matter with tiny, negatively charged electrons embedded in it.
This is called the plum pudding model. In this model, the electrons are the
negatively charged plums in a positively charged pudding. You can see that this
is a different model from the solar system model we described earlier (Figure
22.3).

Figure 22.4a: A plum pudding is a cake with fruit dotted through it. b: In
Thomson’s model, the negatively charged electrons are the plums stuck in a
positively charged pudding.

So why do we no longer think that atoms are like plum puddings? The answer
comes from an experiment carried out by the New Zealander, Ernest Rutherford,
and his colleagues, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, about ten years after
Thomson’s discovery of the electron.
They fired tiny particles called alpha particles at a very thin piece of gold foil.
Alpha particles are tiny, but an alpha particle has almost 8000 times as much
mass as an electron, and they were moving fast (you will learn more about alpha
particles in chapter 23). They used gold as it is easy to get gold foil which is only
a few atoms thick. Their calculations suggested this was a bit like firing bullets
at plum puddings. They predicted that the alpha particles would pass straight
through the gold.
Geiger and Marsden found that most of the alpha particles passed straight
through the gold foil, scarcely deflected. However, a few bounced back towards
the source of the radiation. It was as if there was something very hard in the gold
foil, like a ball-bearing buried inside the plum pudding. What was going on?

Figure 22.5: The experiment to show alpha particle scattering by gold foil.
Alpha particles from the source strike the gold foil. Most pass straight through,
and some are scattered a bit. A few, about one in 8000, are scattered back
towards the source. The experiment is performed in a vacuum chamber as air
would absorb the alpha particles.

Rutherford realised that the answer was to do with electric charge. Alpha
particles are positively charged. If they are repelled back from the gold foil, it
must be by another positive charge. If only a few were repelled, it was because
the positive charge of the gold atoms was concentrated in a tiny space within
each atom. Most alpha particles passed straight through because they never went
near this concentration of charge (see Figure 22.6). This tiny core of
concentrated positive charge, at the heart of every atom, is what we now call the
atom’s nucleus.
Rutherford concluded that:
• most of the mass of an atom is concentrated in the central nucleus
• the nucleus is positively charged
• the nucleus is tiny compared to the atom; an atom is mainly empty space.

Figure 22.6: Most alpha particles pass straight through the gold foil because
they do not pass close to the atomic nucleus. The closer they are to the nucleus,
the more they are deflected or scattered. Only those which head straight to the
nucleus are reflected straight back.

In later years, Rutherford often spoke of the surprising results of the alpha
scattering experiment. He said:
It was quite the most incredible event that ever happened to me in my life. It was
as if you fired a fifteen-inch artillery shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came
back and hit you.

A sense of scale
Rutherford was able to analyse the results from Geiger and Marsden’s
experiment to work out just how big the nucleus of a gold atom was. An atom is
small (about 10‒10 metres across) but its nucleus is very much smaller (about 10‒
15 metres in diameter). The electrons travel around the nucleus. They are even

tinier than the nucleus. And the rest of the atom is simply empty space.
It is hard to imagine these relative sizes. Try picturing a glass marble about 1 cm
in diameter, placed at the centre of a football pitch, to represent the nucleus of an
atom. Then the electrons are like tiny grains of dust, orbiting the nucleus at
different distances, right out to the edge of the football ground.
It is even harder to imagine, when you stub your toe on a rock, that the atoms of
the rock (and your toe) are almost entirely empty space!

A successful model
Rutherford’s model of the atom was soon accepted by other scientists. It gave a
clear explanation of the alpha particle scattering experiment, and further tests
with other metals confirmed Rutherford’s ideas. It clearly showed that the plum
pudding model was wrong.
Rutherford’s model also allowed scientists to think about other questions.
Chemists wanted to know how atoms bonded together. Physicists wanted to
understand why some atoms are unstable and emit radiation, and how X-rays are
produced. These are all questions to which we now have good answers, and
Rutherford’s discovery of the atomic nucleus did a lot to help answer them.
Today, scientists have rather different ideas about atoms. They want to calculate
many different quantities, and so models of the atom are much more
mathematical. Quantum theory, developed not long after Rutherford’s work,
made the atom seem like a much fuzzier thing, not a collection of little spheres
orbiting each other. However, the important thing about a model is that it should
help us to understand things better, and help us to make new predictions.
Rutherford’s model of the nuclear atom has certainly done that.

ACTIVITY 22.1
Nuclear news
Imagine you are a science reporter. You have been sent to interview
Rutherford following the alpha particle scattering experiment. Think about
how you could report this in a way that conveys Rutherford’s amazement at
what his team discovered. Prepare either a newspaper report or a videoed
interview (clearly this wouldn’t have been an option in 1909 when the
experiment took place!).
Remember that the audience are not scientists, so you will need to
introduce the idea of atoms and explain what scientists before Rutherford
 thought.

Questions
1 In the plum pudding model of the atom:
a what are the plums?
b what is the pudding?
2 In the alpha particle scattering experiment, explain what happened to alpha
particles:
a heading directly towards a gold nucleus
b passing close to a gold nucleus
c passing through the empty space between nuclei.
3 How did this experiment prove that the nucleus must be very small?
4 In the solar system model of the atom, what force holds the electrons in
their orbits around the nucleus?
22.2 Protons, neutrons and electrons
We now know that the atomic nucleus is made up of two types of particle,
protons and neutrons. The protons carry the positive charge of the nucleus,
while the neutrons are neutral. Negatively charged electrons orbit the positively
charged nucleus. Protons and neutrons have similar masses, and they account for
most of the mass of the atom because electrons are so light. Together, protons
and neutrons are known as nucleons.
Table 22.1 summarises information about the masses and charges of the three
sub-atomic particles. The columns headed Relative charge and Relative mass
give the charge and mass of each particle compared to that of a proton. It is
much easier to remember these values, rather than the actual values in coulombs
(C) and kilograms (kg).

Atoms and elements

Once the particles that make up atoms were identified, it was much easier to
understand the Periodic Table of the elements (Figure 22.7). This shows the
elements in order, starting with the lightest (hydrogen, then helium) and working
up to the heaviest. In fact, it is not the masses of the atoms that determine the
order in which they appear, but the number of protons in the nucleus of each
atom. Every atom of hydrogen has one proton in its nucleus, so hydrogen is
element number 1. Every helium atom has two protons, so helium is element
number 2, and so on.
Charge / Relative Mass /
Particle Position Relative mass
C charge kg
+1.6 × 1.67 ×
proton in nucleus +1 1
10−19 10−27
1.67 ×
neutron in nucleus 0 0 1
10−27
orbiting −1.6 × 9.11 × 1
electron −1 1836
(practically zero)
nucleus 10−19 10−31
Table 22.1 Charges and masses of the three sub-atomic particles.
Figure 22.7: The Periodic Table of the elements is a way of organising what we
know about the different elements, based on their atomic structures.

Each element has its own symbol, consisting of one or two letters, such as H for
hydrogen, and He for helium. Sometimes, the symbol for an atom may be
written with two numbers in front of it, one above the other, such as:
4 He
2
This represents an atom of helium. The bottom number tells us that there are two
protons in the nucleus of an atom of helium, and the top number tells us that
there is a total of four nucleons in the nucleus of an atom of helium. From this, it
is simple to work out that there must be two neutrons in the nucleus.
We can write the general symbol for an element (X) with its proton number
(Z), which is the number of protons in the nucleus, and nucleon number (A),
which is the number of nucleons (protons and neutron) in the nucleus, as
follows:

XX
A

Z is proton number (also known as the atomic number) and A is nucleon number
(also known as the mass number). This is known as nuclide notation.
A neutral atom of element X will also have Z electrons orbiting the nucleus.
 REFLECTION
What strategies have you found useful in remembering the properties of
each of the subatomic particles and the definitions of nucleon and proton
numbers? Share your strategies with a partner.

Questions
5 Copy and complete these sentences:
An atom has a tiny, dense ______. This contains positively charged ______
and neutral ______. These two particles have approximately the same
______.
A nucleus can be described by two numbers: the proton number, and the
nucleon number which is the total number of ______ and ______ in the
nucleus.
6 Copy and complete Table 22.2.
Subatomic particle Position Relative charge Relative mass
proton 1
electron −1
in the nucleus
Table 22.2

7 A particular neutral atom of boron is represented by 12B.

5
a What is its proton number?
b What is its nucleon number?
c Write down the numbers of protons, neutrons and electrons it contains.
8 A cobalt atom contains 33 neutrons.
a Use the periodic table to find its proton number.
b ZX to represent the cobalt
Write down an expression in the form A
nucleus.
9 How many times greater is the mass of a proton than the mass of an
electron?

Elements and isotopes

It is the proton number, Z, that tells us which element an atom belongs to. For
example, a small atom with just two protons in its nucleus (Z = 2) is a helium
atom. A much bigger atom with 92 protons in its nucleus is a uranium atom,
because uranium is element 92.
From Z and A you can work out a third number, the neutron number (N), which
is the number of neutrons in the nucleus.
proton number + neutron number = nucleon number
Z+N=A

WORKED EXAMPLE 22.1

What can you deduce about the atom whose nucleus can be represented by
14C?
6
Step 1: Look at the atomic symbol.
The symbol C tells us it is a carbon nucleus.
Step 2: Identify the number of protons:
Z=6
Step 3: Identify the number of electrons.
It is a neutral atom, so it has the same number of protons as
electrons = 6.
Step 4: Calculate the number of neutrons:
N = A − Z = 14 − 6 = 8
Answer
14
6C is a carbon nucleus with six protons, six electrons and eight neutrons.

The atoms of all elements exist in more than one form. For example, Figure 22.8
shows three types of hydrogen atom. Each has just one proton in its nucleus, but
they have different numbers of neutrons (0, 1 and 2). This means that they are
described as different isotopes of hydrogen.

Figure 22.8: Hydrogen exists in three different forms known as isotopes. All
three have the same proton number.

• The different isotopes of an element all have the same chemical properties,
but those with a greater number of neutrons are heavier.
• The different isotopes of an element all have the same number of protons
but different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei.
Table 22.3 shows atoms of two isotopes of helium, 42He (the most common
isotope) and 32He (a lighter and much rarer isotope). Each 32He has two protons
in the nucleus and two electrons orbiting it, but the lighter isotope has only one
neutron. These isotopes are referred to as helium-4 and helium-3.
Symbol for isotope Proton number Z Neutron number N Nucleon number A
4 He 2 2 4
2
3 He 2 1 3
2

Table 22.3: Isotopes of helium.

Table 22.4 shows two isotopes of uranium. Uranium-238 is the most common
isotope. Uranium-238 has three more neutrons than uranium-235, but the same
number of protons. Uranium-235 is used in nuclear power stations as its nuclei
can be split to release a huge amount of energy.
Symbol for isotope Proton number Z Neutron number N Nucleon number A
235
92 U 92 143 235
92 146 238
 238
92 U

Table 22.4: Isotopes of uranium.

Isotopes at work
All elements have isotopes, some as many as 36. For most chemical elements, at
least one isotope is stable. Other isotopes are often unstable. This means that the
nucleus is likely to give out radioactivity in order to become stable. You will
learn about radioactive decay in Chapter 23.

Questions
12
10 Carbon exists in two forms 6 C and 614C.
a Write down the number of protons, neutrons and electrons in each.
b Copy and complete these sentences:
12 14
6 C and 6 C are two ______ of carbon.
They have the same ______ number, but different ______ numbers.
Both have the same ______ properties.
11 Table 22.5 lists the proton and nucleon numbers of six different nuclei.
a Copy and complete the table by filling in the empty spaces.
b Which three nuclei are isotopes of one element?
c Which two nuclei are isotopes of another element?
d Use the Periodic Table (Figure 22.7) to identify the three elements in
Table 22.5.
Nucleus Proton number Z Neutron number N Nucleon number A
Nu-1 6 6
Nu-2 6 13
Nu-3 7 14
Nu-4 8 14
Nu-5 6 11
Nu-6 7 13
Table 22.5 Proton and nucleon numbers of nuclei.

Charge and mass of nuclei

The charge on a nucleus is equal to the number of protons as each proton has a
relative charge of +1.
So all three isotopes of hydrogen have a charge of +1 as all contain just one
proton.
The mass of a nucleus is equal to the mass of the nucleons as both protons and
neutrons have a relative mass of one. Each of the hydrogen isotopes has a
different mass. Protium has a mass of one, deuterium has a mass of two and
tritium has a mass of three.

Question
12 Write down the mass and charge of the nuclei of the helium and uranium
isotopes shown in Tables 22.3 and 22.4.

Nuclear fission and fusion

In Chapter 7 you learnt about the use of nuclear fuels. These produce energy by
splitting nuclei which is a process known as nuclear fission. Figure 22.9 shows a
fission reaction in which a uranium-235 nucleus is hit by a neutron. The extra
neutron causes it to become unstable and it splits, making two new nuclei and
three extra neutrons. A large amount of energy is also released. These neutrons
can then split, leading to a chain reaction.
Figure 22.9: A uranium-235 nucleus being split to make barium and krypton
nuclei, three more neutrons and a lot of energy.

This reaction can be represented by a balanced nuclear equation:

235 U + 1n → 92 141 1
92 0 36Ba + 56Kr + 3 0 n + energy
Both the proton numbers and the nucleon numbers must be equal on each side of
the equation:
Proton number: 92 + 0 = 36 + 56 + 3(0)
92 = 92 ✓
Nucleon number: 235 + 1 = 92 + 141 + 3(1)
236 = 236 ✓
Nuclear fusion produces even more energy than nuclear fission. Fusion is when
two nuclei join together to form a larger nucleus. This can only happen at
extremely high temperatures. Fusion is the process by which stars produce heat
and light. The equation below shows one of the fusion reactions which occurs in
the Sun. You can see that the proton and nucleon numbers balance:
2 H + 2H → 32He + 10n
1 1

Something for nothing?

As you know, energy cannot be created or destroyed. So, where does the huge
amount of energy released in fission and fusion come from? To answer this we
need one of the most famous equations in physics:
E = mc2
The total mass of the particles before a fission or fusion reaction is found to be
slightly more than the total mass after the reaction. The mass which is lost is
converted to energy, and Einstein’s equation allows us to calculate the amount of
energy released:
energy released (E) = mass lost (m) × the speed of light squared (c²)
The speed of light squared is a huge number, so even a very small loss of mass
will produce a large amount of energy.

PROJECT
A brief history of particle physics
Throughout history mankind has tried to explain the world around us and
what it is made of. This has led to an understanding of atoms, then their
constituent protons, neutrons and electrons. In this chapter we have covered
part of this story, but there have been many scientists making discoveries
and often receiving Nobel prizes for their work. And the story is not
complete. In 2012, scientists at CERN detected the Higgs boson. It is a
particle which had been predicted theoretically and which helps in our
understanding of gravity.

Figure 22.10a: Ernest Rutherford (shown here in his laboratory at

Manchester University). b: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in
Switzerland. The LHC is so big that scientists cycle from one part of an
experiment to another.

Produce a timeline or presentation showing the main developments in

particle physics from ancient world thought to present day investigations
using the Large Hadron Collider.
You could investigate the contributions of:
• the Jains in Ancient India
• ancient Greeks such as Democritus and Leucippus
• John Dalton
• J. J. Thomson
• Ernest Rutherford, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden
• James Chadwick
• Murray Gell-Mann
• Francois Englert and Peter Higgs.
You should include diagrams to explain experiments and models of the
atom. Try to include as many of the key words from this chapter as you
can.
Your presentation should focus on the way in which ideas follow on from
each other. It should inspire people with the knowledge that there is still a
lot to be discovered by the physicists of tomorrow.

PEER ASSESSMENT
Give feedback to another group. Write comments on these points:
• Does the presentation make it clear what each scientist contributed to
the story?
• Does Are the experiments described clearly?
• Do you feel it gives the reader/viewer a sense of scientists building on
the work of those who went before them?
SUMMARY

The atom consists of a tiny positive nucleus surrounded by mainly empty

space with negative electrons orbiting.
Positive or negative ions are formed when an atom loses or gains
electrons.
The nucleus contains two types of nucleons: positively charged protons
and neutral neutrons.
Rutherford’s alpha particle scattering experiment provided evidence to
support the nuclear model of the atom.
Protons and neutrons have approximately the same mass. This is nearly
2000 times the mass of an electron.
Protons and electrons have equal but opposite charge.
Z X, where X is the
A nucleus can be described using the notation A
chemical symbol, Z the number of protons and A the number of nucleons.
Isotopes are nuclei of the same element which have the same proton
number but different nucleon numbers.
Nuclear fission is the splitting of a large nucleus, which releases a lot of
energy.
Nuclear fusion is joining together of small nuclei, which releases even
more energy than fission.
Nuclear fission and fusion can be described using nuclear equations.
EXAM-STYLE QUESTIONS

1 Which row correctly gives the relative charge of a proton,

neutron and electron?
[1]

Proton Neutron Electron

A 1 0 1
B 1 1 −1
C −1 0 1
D 1 0 −1

82
2 A nucleus is represented by the notation 193Pb. What particles
does it contain? [1]
A 82 protons and 193 neutrons
B 82 protons, 82 electrons and 111 neutrons
C 82 neutrons and 111 protons
D 82 protons and 111 neutrons

3 An element has two isotopes. What is different for the two

isotopes? [1]
A the number of protons
B the chemical symbol
C the number of neutrons
D the chemical properties of the isotope

4 a Name the two types of particles found in an atom’s

nucleus. [2]
b State the name given to the total number of particles in a
nucleus. [1]
 c Describe what happens to the charge on an atom when it
gains an electron. [2]
[Total: 5]
5 The diagram shows a neutral beryllium atom.

a How many electrons does the atom have? [1]

b How many protons does it have? [1]
c What is its nucleon number? [1]
d How many neutrons does it have? [1]
e Copy and complete this nuclear notation to represent the
beryllium nucleus:
□Be
□ [1]
f A radioactive isotope of beryllium is known as beryllium-
11. How many protons, neutrons and electrons does an
atom of this isotope contain? [3]
g Write down the nuclear notation for beryllium-11. [2]
[Total: 10]

6 The ‘plum pudding’ model was used by scientists in the early

20th century to describe the structure of the atom.

a Scientists knew that atoms contained negative electrons

and that atoms were neutral overall. What did they assume
about the ‘pudding’? [1]
b Geiger and Marsden carried out an experiment which
showed the plum pudding model was wrong. They fired
alpha particles at gold foil which was only a few atoms
thick. The diagram below shows three alpha particles
approaching the gold nuclei. Copy and complete the
diagram to show what happened to the three particles. [3]

c Explain why the floor will dry more quickly if the cook
turns on an electric fan. [2]
[Total: 6]
SELF-EVALUATION CHECKLIST
After studying this chapter, think about how confident you are with the
different topics. This will help you to see any gaps in your knowledge and
help you to learn more effectively.
Needs Confident
See Almost
I can more to move
Topic... there
work on
Describe the structure of the atom. 22.1
Describe how ions are formed. 22.1
Describe Rutherford’s alpha scattering
22.1
experiment and its conclusions.
Name the particles in the nucleus and
22.2
state their mass and charge.
Define proton number Z. 22.2
Define nucleon number A. 22.2
ZX
Describe nuclei using the notation A
22.2
.
Describe the similarities and
differences between two isotopes of an 22.2
element.
Describe the processes of nuclear
22.2
fission and fusion.
State what the proton and nucleon
numbers tell us about the charge and 22.2
mass of a nucleus.