ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by atoms.

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They make up... everything.

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So this is brought to you by, well, everything.

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Whoa.

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An atom has three protons, three electrons, and four neutrons.

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Three, three, four. What is the charge on the atom?

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And here are the potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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Well, figuring out the answer here comes down to basic addition

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and subtraction. We just need a quick review.

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We've got protons, which carry positive charges.

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There are electrons, which carry negative charges.

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And there are neutrons, which are particles without a charge.

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In our question here, we've got three protons, three electrons, and four neutrons.

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Now, it doesn't matter how many neutrons there are in the atom

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because neutrons have no charge.

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They're the unambitious slackers of the subatomic world.

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All we have to do is think of a proton as one

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and an electron as a negative one.

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So if we take positive three and add it

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to negative three, well, we get zero, making option B the correct choice.

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And it's important to remember that neutrons don't affect the charge of an atom.

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Only the protons and electrons do.

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If there are more protons than electrons, well, the atom will have a positive charge.

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If there are more electrons than protons, it'll have a negative charge. Duh.

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And if there's the same number of each, then we've got

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a neutral atom with no charge, like the one in our question and Switzerland.

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And if we need to count using our fingers,

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we'll go ahead and do it. It's nice; it makes us feel young again.

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