Question

An element Z consists of three types of atoms ${}_{22}{}^{11}\mathrm{Z},{}_{23}{}^{11}\mathrm{Z},{}_{24}{}^{11}\mathrm{Z}$. How many electrons does each atom have?

Answer 1

The given element Z consists of three types of atoms ${}_{22}{}^{11}\mathrm{Z},{}_{23}{}^{11}\mathrm{Z},{}_{24}{}^{11}\mathrm{Z}$ We need to correctly represent the atomic and mass number of the atoms to determine protons, electrons and neutrons in an atom.

1. As the mass number is always greater than the atomic number, the correct representation will be ${}_{11}{}^{22}\mathrm{Z},{}_{11}{}^{23}\mathrm{Z},{}_{11}{}^{24}\mathrm{Z}$
2. The atomic number is written in the subscript tells the number of electrons in the atom.

$$\begin{gathered} \mathrm{Atomic}\mathrm{number}=\mathrm{number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{protons} \\ \mathrm{Number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{protons}=\mathrm{number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{electrons} \end{gathered}$$

Therefore, the number of electrons in each case will be 11.