In this video, we're going to talk about atomic structure or the structure of atoms. Now, atoms are made up of three subatomic particles, each with their own characteristic charge, mass, and location within the atom. Notice over here, we have this table that gives you information on the three subatomic particles that make up an atom. And so those three subatomic particles are protons, neutrons, and electrons. When it comes to the electric charge of a proton, it's going to be plus one, so it has a positive charge. You can think that the "p" here positively charged. When it comes to the electric charge of the neutron, the neutron is going to be, as its name implies, neutral, meaning that it has a neutral electric charge of zero, and so its electric charge is going to be zero. When it comes to the electron and its electric charge, it's going to have a negative one electric charge. The way that you can think about it is that electron kinda sounds like getting electrocuted, and getting electrocuted is definitely not something positive, it's something negative, and that's how you can remember that it's going to have a negative one charge.
When it comes to the mass of subatomic particles, the subatomic particles are so incredibly small that it doesn't really make a lot of sense to measure their mass in pounds or ounces or kilograms or even grams. They are so small that scientists have come up with a new unit to measure their mass, and that unit is called the atomic mass unit or AMU for short. Protons have an atomic mass unit of one. Neutrons also have an atomic mass unit of one. However, electrons are going to be different. Electrons have a mass that is so incredibly small that it's practically negligible, meaning that we can pretty much ignore its mass and just round it off to say that it is zero. We can go ahead and say that the electron has an atomic mass unit of zero. In terms of the location of these subatomic particles within the atom, you can see that the proton is found within the nucleus of the atom. The neutron is also found within the nucleus of the atom. However, the electrons, once again, are going to be different. Instead of being found within the nucleus, the electrons are going to be found orbiting the nucleus or revolving around the nucleus.
If we take a look at our image over here, you can see that we're showing you the image of a carbon atom right here. Notice that the nucleus is indicated with the purplish background. Notice that within the nucleus, we have these positively charged protons that look like this, and then we also have these neutral, gray, circles that represent the neutrons, and both the protons and the neutrons are found packed within the nucleus of the atom, just like what we see here. However, notice that the electrons, which are these little blue circles, are not found within the nucleus. Instead, the electrons are going to be found orbiting the nucleus in these electron shells that we see here. We'll talk more about these electron shells as we move forward in our course. But for now, what you guys should know are the subatomic particles, our protons, neutrons, and electrons, you should know their characteristic electric charge, their characteristic atomic mass unit, and the location of each subatomic particle. This here concludes our introduction to atomic structure and as we move forward, we'll be able to get some practice. So I'll see you all in our next video.