i could be entierly wrong but from what i remember being told the elements of atoms all have their own frequency or vibration. is this true? and furthermore would changing the vibration or frequency change the element of the atom.
im not asking if this is physicality possible now.. but is this how the system works, or do i have a fundamental misunderstanding?
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Fundamental misunderstanding. The number of protons in an atom determines its element. Hydrogen has 1 proton, helium has 2, lithium has 3, and so on.
Frequency and vibration are a whole separate thing – atoms do vibrate and interact, but let’s ignore that for now.
Every element is made up of a nucleus, made up of positively-charged *protons* and neutrally-charged *neutrons*, and the nucleus is surrounded by negatively charged *electrons,* which we can think of as orbiting the nucleus. What’s actually happening is more complex, but it’s good enough to picture it like [this image.](https://cdn1.byjus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/What-Does-An-Atom-Look-Like-3.png)
An atom’s element is determined by how many protons it has. That’s it. If an element has 8 protons, it’s Oxygen. If it has 28 protons, it’s Nickel, and so on. The number of neutrons can vary, which can sometimes result in radioactivity. And the number of electrons *usually* matches the number of protons, so that the positive and negative charges balance out. But electrons are responsible for chemical reactions – they interact with other elements, sharing, giving, or taking electrons in different ways, to combine elements into compounds. But at the core, each element still has its nucleus full of protons, and that can’t change unless we split the atom or fuse it, which take a lot of effort to do.
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Atoms are made from protons and neutrons.
The protons have positive charges, and how many of them are in the atom determines the element.
Neutrons have neutral charge, and adding them can make an atom heavier, but it’ll still be an “isotope” of the same element.
So, for example, Uranium-235 and Uranium-238 are both isotopes of Uranium because they each have 92 protons… but U-235 has 143 neutrons compared to U-238 having 146. And when folks just say “Uranium” that usually juts means “natural Uranium” which will be mixture of different Uranium isotopes in the typical proportions that they are found in on Earth.
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The way that “frequency” and “vibration” comes into play has to do with the mass of the atom.
Similar to how a steel tuning fork and an aluminum tuning fork could be made to the exact same dimensions will produce different sounds, two atoms with different masses will react differently when struck by something like a photon.
different elements are determined by how many protons are in the atom.
In the center of an atom is the nucleus, a ball made up two types of particles, protons and neutrons. How many protons determines the element. For example hydrogen is just a single proton, carbon has 6 protons, oxygen has 8 protons, lead has 82 protons, etc.
Neutrons don’t change the element but the amount of neutrons does determine the Isotope, which can give the element other properties. For example, Uranium, with 92 protons. Normally Uranium has 146 neutrons as Uranium-238, but the isotope of uranium we use for nuclear reactors and bombs, Uranium-235, has 3 less neutrons, which make it much more unstable and way more radioactive.
Elements can bind to each other in some cases to form compound molecules, or split apart back into individual atoms. However breaking apart or combining atoms together to form new elements is much harder and tricky. This is known as Nuclear Fission and Fusion, respectively. While we have obviously achieved both, we have only really scratched the surface of both concepts, made more difficult by the immense amount of energy that is released when you split or combine atoms. The sun is a case of natural Nuclear Fusion, its currently fusing hydrogen into helium as we speak, and unstable elements like uranium found in nature slowly decay over time into small elements as their unstable protons and neutrons fly away.
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