Question

can someone plez explain isotopes for me, in in honnors and we go rly fast and im so confused on them

Answer 1

like how in depth? is this for basic understanding for biology? or chemistry honors?

Answer 2

well i can tell you the very basics. each element, like carbon contains neutrons and protons in the nucleus. when you are identifying 'isotopic' forms the only thing that change that you can observe is the amount of neutrons in that nucleus. imagine that a carbon-12 atom gains two neutrons it is now considered carbon-14 the isotopic form. want more information? i can go a little further.

Answer 3

Simply put, isotopes are elements that has a different number of neutrons than their natural counterpart, the above example was carbon 14, in which carbon has 2 extra neutrons than usual. By convention all isotopes are defined by their atomic mass with the inclusion of extra neutrons, so in this case carbon 14 is an isotope, carbon 12 is just normal carbon.