Amos is using three different colors of candy to create atomic models. He constructs a model of an oxygen atom as demonstrated. There are a bunch of red and green candies in the middle mixed together, and there are a bunch of blue candies spread out further from the circle or red and green. Amos wants to modify this model to represent a different isotope of oxygen. What adjustments could he make to achieve this? A red candy is a proton, a green candy is a neutron, and a blue candy is a electron

Answer 1

To modify the model of an oxygen atom to represent a different isotope, Amos needs to adjust the number of neutrons in the nucleus.

Oxygen has a standard atomic number of 8, which means it has 8 protons (represented by red candies). To represent different isotopes of oxygen, such as oxygen-16 (the most common isotope, with 8 neutrons), oxygen-17 (with 9 neutrons), or oxygen-18 (with 10 neutrons), he can do the following:

1. Oxygen-16 (O-16): Maintain 8 red candies (protons) and 8 green candies (neutrons).

2. Oxygen-17 (O-17): Keep the 8 red candies (protons) and increase the green candies (neutrons) to 9.

3. Oxygen-18 (O-18): Keep the 8 red candies (protons) and increase the green candies (neutrons) to 10.

In all cases, the number of blue candies (electrons) should remain 8, as the number of electrons in a neutral atom is equal to the number of protons.

So, to summarize, Amos should adjust the number of green candies to match the desired isotope of oxygen while keeping the number of red candies the same at 8 and the number of blue candies at 8.