The second identifying number of an atom is its mass number.

The mass number reports the

mass of the atom’s nucleus in amu. Because protons and neutrons weigh 1 amu each (as you
find out earlier in this chapter), the mass number equals the sum of the numbers of protons
and neutrons.
Why, you may wonder, don’t we care about the mass of the electrons? Is some sort of insidious
subatomic particle-ism afoot? No. An electron has only 1⁄1,836 the mass of a proton or neutron.
So, to make mass numbers nice and even, chemists have decided to conveniently forget
that electrons have mass. Although this assumption is not, well, true, the contributions of
electrons to the mass of an atom are so small that the assumption is usually harmless.
To specify the atomic and mass numbers of an element, chemists typically write the symbol
of the element in the form , where Z is the atomic number, A is the mass number, and X is
the chemical symbol for that element.
Z
A X

38 Part I: Getting Cozy with Numbers, Atoms, and Elements

Q. What is the name, atomic number, mass number, number of protons, number of electrons,
and number of neutrons of each of the following four elements: , , , and ?
A. The answers to questions like these, favorites of chemistry teachers, are best organized in a
table. First, look up the symbols Cl, Os, and K in the periodic table (see Figure 3–1) and find
the names of these elements. Enter what you find in the first column. To fill in the second
and third columns, read the atomic number and mass number from the lower left and upper
left of the chemical symbols given in the question. The atomic number equals the number of
protons; the number of electrons is the same as the number of protons, because elements
have zero overall charge. So, fill in the fourth and fifth columns with the same numbers you
entered in column two. Lastly, subtract the atomic number from the mass number to get the
number of neutrons, and enter that value into column six. Voila! The entire private lives of
each of these atoms is now laid before you. Your answer should look like the following table.
Name Atomic Mass Number of Number of Number of
Number Number Protons Electrons Neutrons
Chlorine 17 35 17 17 18
Chlorine 17 37 17 17 19
Osmium 76 190 76 76 114
Potassium 19 39 19 19 20
19
39 K 76
190Os 17
37 Cl 17

35 Cl

4. Write the proper chemical symbol for an atom of bismuth with a mass of 209 amu.
Solve It