Comment on Why are some things heavier than others?
Rhaedas@fedia.io 1 week ago
The why of mass is "just" more material within the same unit area.
What always gets me is how adding one more of the pieces of matter, specifically another proton, changes the very properties of that atom, sometimes dramatically.
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
A lot of what makes the elements different is the electronic configuration, which is probably more important in chemical interactions compared to proton number.
For instance, chlorine has 7 outer shell electrons and readily accepts an additional electron. This makes chlorine very reactive! In contrast, the next element, argon, is a noble gas that rarely reacts with anything. So much so, it’s often used in experiments where chemicals should not be in contact with oxygen. This is because it has a full outer shell, so it doesn’t readily react to create compounds. The addition of a proton also means (for a neutral atom) an additional electron, and this can drastically change the properties of an element!
Electron configuration is what mainly governs chemical processes, so differences in the chemical nature of elements is often due to the difference in electrons and their energy levels!