Isotope Isotope Isotopes are variants of a particular chemical element which differ in neutron number, and consequently in mass number. All isotopes of a given element have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons in each atom. The term isotope is formed from the Greek roots isos (ἴσος "equal") and topos (τόπος "place"), meaning "the same place"; thus, the meaning behind the name is that different isotopes of a single element occupy the same position on the periodic table. The number of protons within the atom's nucleus is called atomic number and is equal to the number of
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