What is it about, let’s say arsenic atoms, that makes it so much more deadly than gold for example. And please expand this to molecules too.
In: Chemistry
Most of the effects you are talking about are just the chemistry of the atoms. The chemistry is a result of how many electrons they have and “want,” which is a result of the number of protons they have. So the difference between arsenic and gold, in the end, is that arsenic has 33 protons and gold has 79. That changes how they work chemically, and how a body will process them (it’ll just excrete the gold, but the arsenic will be bioactive in nasty ways). If you had an arsenic atom and could add 46 protons to it, it’d be gold. This is what we mean by a “chemical element,” so if it seems tautological, it sort of is — gold is any atom with 79 protons, arsenic is any atom with 33.
The number of neutrons influences the physical properties of the atom — notably it can determine whether it is radioactive or not, and how radioactive it is. So any atom with 79 protons is gold, but depending on the number of neutrons it might be normal gold, or it might be radioactive gold. These different types of atoms, with different neutron counts, are called “isotopes.”
Lastly, molecules are just groups of atoms that are joined together by shared electrons. Again, how this works is going to be determined by the chemistry, which means by the electrons, and so ultimately the protons.
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