Why does increasing or decreasing the number of protons (as you move about the periodic table) drastically change how elements look and behave. How is it with slightly different quantities of the same thing get you from gold to salt to helium? Are those atomic particles really are there is to matter?
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Yes, for the most part, the number of protons in an atom is all that really matters (pun not intended). The number of protons very strongly affects the number of electrons in an atom. An electron can fairly easily be ripped off (e.g. by X-rays) and atoms can also pull in extra electrons. But overall, the number of electrons in an atom is very strongly dependent on the number of protons.
The number of electrons, in turn, affects several different properties that we can observe. Electrons live in “shells” or “clouds” surrounding the nucleus. The number of electrons in the outermost shells of an atom influences its reactivity. These shells are not spherically symmetric, so the numbers of electrons in these shells can also have an effect on how clusters of several atoms of an element are shaped (i.e. what shapes crystals will have). The shells also have energy hierarchies – traveling from one to another requires the electron to absorb a precise amount of energy from an external source, and traveling back will give off that same amount; each electron configuration (again, which is pretty much 1:1 with the number of protons) will have a different group of these energy transitions, which we can see as light. The list goes on and on.
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