Isotone Isotone Two nuclides are isotones if they have the same neutron number "N", but different proton number "Z". For example, boron-12 and carbon-13 nuclei both contain 7 neutrons, and so are isotones. Similarly, S, Cl, Ar, K, and Ca nuclei are all isotones of 20 because they all contain 20 neutrons. Despite its similarity to the Greek for "same stretching", the term was formed by the German physicist K. Guggenheimer by changing the "p" in "isotope" from "p" for "proton" to "n" for "neutron". The largest numbers of observationally stable nuclides exist for isotones 50 (five: Kr, Sr, Y, Zr,
Even and odd atomic nuclei Even and odd atomic nuclei In nuclear physics, properties of a nucleus depend on evenness or oddness of its atomic number "Z", neutron number "N" and, consequently, of their sum, the mass number "A". Most notably, oddness of both "Z" and "N" tends to lower the nuclear binding energy, making odd nuclei, generally, less stable. This effect is not only experimentally observed, but is included to the semi-empirical mass formula and explained by some other nuclear models, such as nuclear shell model. This remarkable difference of nuclear binding energy between neighbouring nuclei, especially of odd-"A" isobars, has important consequences for