Asked by violet

A researcher is using a particle accelerator in an experiment studying isotopes. How can the researcher change one isotope into a different isotope of the same element?

by removing valence electrons
by adding valence electrons
by adding or removing protons
by adding or removing neutrons

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
By adding or removing neutrons.

Isotopes are variants of the same element with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. Changing electrons only makes ions, and changing protons changes the element itself. In practice a particle accelerator can induce reactions (neutron capture, (p,n) or (d,n) reactions, spallation, etc.) to increase or decrease the neutron number.