The existence of nonradioactive isotopes of lighter elements had been suspected in studies of neon as early as 1913, and proven by mass spectrometry of light elements in 1920. At that time the neutron had not yet been discovered, and the prevailing theory was that isotopes of an element differ by the existence of additional protons in the nucleus accompanied by an equal number of nuclear electrons. In this theory, the deuterium nucleus with mass two and charge one would contain two protons and one nuclear electron. However, it was expected that the element hydrogen with a measured average atomic mass very close to , the known mass of the proton, always has a nucleus composed of a single proton (a known particle), and could not contain a second proton. Thus, hydrogen was thought to have no heavy isotopes.