Isotope

From Citizendium
Revision as of 12:47, 9 January 2011 by imported>Ro Thorpe (Greek)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is a stub and thus not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

Isotopes (from Greek Ισότοπο) are forms of chemical elements which have the same atomic number but a different atomic mass, or the same number of protons in the atomic nucleus but different numbers of neutrons.

For example, carbon-12 (12C), carbon-13 (13C) and carbon-14 (14C) are three isotopes of carbon, each containing six protons and also containing six, seven or eight neutrons, respectively. While carbon-12 is the most common form, 13C is magnetically active, and it is therefore useful for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Carbon-14 is radioactive, and is therefore useful for radiation tracing and age determination.