Why Does Changing Just One Proton Change an Element?

this video is sponsored by soent see the link in the description for a special discount for Arvin Ash viewers this is the periodic table it lists all the different types of atoms or elements known to man what makes each of these elements unique it's their atomic number you'll find that all have a different number which corresponds to the different number of protons in their nucleus what you may find surprising is how changing just one proton in the nucleus results in a drastic difference in the properties of an element take for example element number 19 potassium it has 19 protons it's a silvery white metal at room temperature but is soft enough to cut with a knife but it's highly reactive in fact it will catch on fire when put in water because it produces hydrogen and heat which ignites when combined with oxygen if we take away just one proton we would have element 18 argon which is a gas at room temperature and is almost completely unreactive similarly if we add just one proton to element 19 we get element 20 which is calcium this is also a solid at room temperature but unlike potassium it's fairly hard the individual protons in each of these three elements are almost exactly the same only the number has changed and that makes all the difference why the question I want to get to the bottom of in this video is how can a single proton make such a huge difference in an element's properties what is so magical about the proton specifically the number of protons that causes such a profound difference in properties the answer will take us deep into how chemistry energy and ultimately what else with quantum mechanics determines everything that's coming up right [Music] now so the question is why does the addition or subtraction of a single proton in the nucleus so drastically affect the properties of elements I'm going to give you a very simple answer then we're going to go deeper into why the universe works this way so the simple answer is this the number of protons in the nucleus determines the number of electrons that the atom needs in order to be a neutral atom the positive charge of the protons gets cancelled out by the negative charge of the electrons the number and configuration of the electrons of an atom determines its chemical properties so since the number of electrons is determined by the number of protons changing even just one proton will change the number and configuration of electrons and thus the chemical properties of the element now this needs further explaining first if the number of electrons determines the properties then why don't we classify elements based on their number of electrons instead of protons this is a good question and there's a good answer for this but before we do that I'd like to give a big shout out to our sponsor soent it's complete nutritional food backed by science I work long hours and don't have time to prepare meals but I like to keep healthy and for me soilent is the go-to meal replacement what's great is that their formulation is based on research and clinical trials they've done the homework so that you don't have to now the science is great but the biggest attractive for me is that it tastes really good and I'm not alone because in a survey of $40,000 people by canar research it beat out its competition for best tasting the other big reason I prefer soilent is because I'm lactose intolerant soent is completely plant-based there are no milk products in it so I can drink it and not upset my stomach my personal favorite is cafe mocha flavor it tastes like a really rich dark coffee which I love solent has a special offer right now for Arvin ashers the first 500 people to use this link and code Arvin 25 will get 25% off their first subscription give it a try I think you'll really like it now let's answer the question of why elements are not classified based on their electrons the electrons on the outermost shell in the case of most atoms can be changed by taking on or giving away electrons to and from other atoms this is the basis of all chemistry so for example in the case of potassium the single electron in its outermost sh shell underg goes an ionic bond with other atoms that strongly attract its lone outer shell electron such as chlorine for example to form potassium chloride so potassium commonly exists as a positively charged ion in nature with 18 electrons just like argon does but its chemical properties are nothing like argon even with the same number of electrons this is also the case for almost every other element that is they can exist in nature with different numbers of electrons but retain their essential Atomic properties for example iron although it requires 26 electrons to be neutral it commonly exists in nature with 24 or 23 electrons designated as the ions fe+ 2 and fe+ 3 but it still retains its essential Atomic or nuclear properties even though it exists in ionic form unlike electrons however the number of protons essentially never changes for most elements it Remains the Same why because protons cannot be exchanged with other atoms like electrons can in chemical reactions now I should add that the number of protons can in some cases change in nature but typically only in very heavy elements and isotopes that contain a large number of protons and neutrons this happen spontaneously due to the weak Force via a process called beta Plus or beta minus Decay when the nucleus can go to a lower energy state by transforming a proton to a neutron or vice versa the strong force can also cause Alpha decays in some unstable nuclei which reduces the number of protons in the element but the proton count of an element does not change in chemical reactions this proton number in turn determines the number of electrons the atom needs to be neutral and that in turn determines the behavior of the atom when it interacts with other atoms chemically that is the bonds it can form and this Behavior determines both its chemical and physical properties so there's nothing Magic about the individual proton but a change in proton number determines how many electrons an element needs to be neutral and the propensity of that element to keep give away or share its outermost electrons with most atoms now let's go one level deeper I kind of glossed over the fact that it's the electrons in the outermost shell of an atom that determines its chemical properties what do I mean by outer shell and why are there different shells to begin with to answer this it's important to realize that chemistry is nothing but very complex physics we can describe an atom very accurately with physics specifically quantum mechanics there's a core Concept in physics which is critical to understanding chemistry and that core concept is that all system tend towards their minimal energy State what this means is that atoms and molecules tend to favor the state with the lowest potential energy which is called the ground state why why because of the second law of Thermodynamics which states that entropy of the universe always increases or stays the same any chemical process or interaction that goes to the lowest energy State increases the entropy of the Universe I made a video about why this is if you want to dive deeper into it one of the most important equations in quantum mechanics helps us find precisely the energy state of an atom that equation is the ringer equation now it may look intimidating but it is basically an energy equation that states that the total energy equals the potential energy plus the kinetic energy we can solve this to find how the energies of the electrons in any given atom will be distributed in its ground state and when we solve it we find that electrons are distributed in orbitals and shells around the nucleus an orbital can contain a maximum of two electrons why only two because of the poly Exclusion Principle which states that essentially two identical electrons cannot be in the same place at the same time but since an electron can have two different spin States up or down this makes up to two electrons that are different from each other so they can occupy the same orbital but you can't add a third electron to this orbital because then it would be exactly the same as one of the other two so two is the maximum in any orbital solving this shinger equation also shows us that as the number of electrons increases in an element they occupy different energy levels or shells around the nucleus of the atom these shells can only accommodate a maximum of a fixed number of electrons the result is that elements having a certain number of electrons are the most stable those numbers are 2 10 18 36 54 and 86 why these particular numbers and not some other numbers like 4 32 or 80 because if you solve the shinger equation you'll find that these numbers in the shells result in the lowest energy state of a given atom around its nucleus so the handful of elements that have exactly these proton numbers they will have the precise number of electrons that make their atomic structure most energetically stable consequently they will not have the propensity to take on or lose any of their electrons to other atoms in other words they will not react with anything on the periodic table they are the rightmost elements designated the noble elements but every other element that exists does not have a full shell of electrons and so this creates a kind of instability in the element because its electron structure will not be the most energetically favorable in other words it will have a tendency to react with other elements to form a molecular bond that would be more energetically fa favorable let's use our previous example of pottassium and argon argon has 18 protons and 18 electrons which form a full three shells of electrons it has no room in its outermost shell to take on or give away its electrons because they're already in the most energetically favorable configuration so it is not reactive potassium on the other hand has 19 protons and 19 electrons it has a lone electron in its fourth shell so this element is not so stable to become more stable it would need to give away its lone electron in its outermost shell and given any opportunity it does exactly that by reacting with another element that really needs its lone electron to become more stable so now if we look at which elements need an extra electron to become more stable we can see that chlorine for example has only 17 protons and 17 electrons it happens to be missing a single electron that would make its outer shell into a full shell and so pottassium and chloride form a chemical bond that results in the molecule potassium chloride which is more energetically stable than either element on its own this reaction is so energetically favorable in fact that a lot of energy is released when they form a bond what we see in the reaction is the energy that is no longer needed to maintain their suboptimal electron configurations this is essentially how chemistry Works Elements trade electrons to form neutrally charged systems that are more energetically favorable this is why the proton number is key in defining the element as it is the main factor in determining what number of electrons an element would prefer it all boils down to making a system that is more energetically favorable and electronically neutral now the question you might ask is if full electron shells around an atom is the most energetically favorable as they are in the noble elements then why aren't all elements noble elements in other words why didn't nature make only these most stable elements the reason is because almost all elements other than the three lightest ones hydrogen helium and lithium were formed via Fusion inside stars or other star processes and for the most part only when these Stars exploded is how the heavier elements came into the universe and the fusion process inside stars is such that it results in nuclei with all kinds of different numbers of protons not just the noble elements because Fusion is a nuclear process that just makes stable nuclei it's not a chemical process that optimizes electron shell stability and we should be thankful for this because the source of these heavier elements are literally our lucky stars because without these Stars we would not have the elements that created life and you and I would not be here asking these profound questions if you enjoyed this video check out my video on how all the elements of the universe were formed the link is coming up in about 5 Seconds I'll see you in the next video my friend [Music]

Channel: Arvin Ash

Views: 360,457

Keywords: quantum mechanics, elements, periodic table, schrodinger equation, why are elements classified based on protons, why does changing only one protons change an element, why aren't elements classified based on electrons, why aren't all elements noble, chemistry, what is the basis of chemistry, why are noble elements non reactive, why do some elements combine, valence electrons, electron shells, why are there electron shells, entropy and chemistry, How is entropy related to chemistry

Id: -cXzWjJCWTI

Length: 13min 57sec (837 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024