Chemical element hydrogen and deuterium). Thus, all carbon isotopes have nearly identical chemical properties because they all have six protons and six electrons, even though carbon atoms may, for example, have 6 or 8 neutrons. That is why the atomic number, rather than mass number or atomic weight, is considered the identifying characteristic of a chemical element. The symbol for atomic number is "Z". Isotopes are atoms of the same element (that is, with the same number of protons in their atomic nucleus), but having "different" numbers of neutrons. Thus, for example, there are three main isotopes of carbon. All carbon atoms
Avoided crossing one set of parameters. If both of the atoms of a diatomic molecule is same, the symmetry suggests that different configurations keeping their mutual distance fixed will result into same electronic states. So it is the relative distance formula_73 which acts as a parameter for the two equations promising level crossing. Hence due to the avoided crossing theorem in general we can not have level crossings between two electronic states of same symmetry. But in polyatomic molecules the number of independent mutual distances of nuclei are more. For a N-atomic molecule the number of independent mutual separation is formula_74 (for