Question

Why are isotopes electrically neutral?

Answer 1

Hint: Isotopes are the chemical elements that are with the same atomic number but different mass number. The atomic number gives the number of protons and the mass number gives the sum of the protons and neutrons. As the number of electrons and number of neutrons are same in an isotope. Isotopes are electrically neutral.

Complete Step By Step Answer:
Chemical elements are the purest forms of atoms. An atom consists of three subatomic particles like electrons, protons and neutrons. Electrons are negatively charged subatomic particles; neutrons are neutrally charged subatomic particles which means of zero charge. Protons are positively charged subatomic particles.
An isotope is the chemical element with the same atomic number but different mass number. Atomic number is represented by $ Z $ which represents the number of protons and mass number $ A $ which represents the sum of the number of protons and neutrons. The hydrogen atom has three isotopes namely proton, deuterium and tritium. The isotopes can be written as $ _1^1H $ , $ _1^2H $ and $ _1^3H $ .
In every isotope the charged subatomic particles which are protons and electrons are in equal number. Thus, an isotope is electrically neutral.

Note:
In every isotope there will be an equal number of electrons and protons. Only the neutron number will be different. Carbon has two isotopes namely $ _6^{12}C $ and $ _6^{14}C $ . In both the two isotopes the number of protons and electrons is six. There is a difference in the number of neutron numbers. In $ _6^{12}C $ isotope the number of neutrons was six and in $ _6^{14}C $ the number of neutrons was eight.