Atom to the positively charged nucleus by the attraction created from opposite electric charges. If an atom has more or fewer electrons than its atomic number, then it becomes respectively negatively or positively charged as a whole; a charged atom is called an ion. Electrons have been known since the late 19th century, mostly thanks to J.J. Thomson; see history of subatomic physics for details. Protons have a positive charge and a mass 1,836 times that of the electron, at . The number of protons in an atom is called its atomic number. Ernest Rutherford (1919) observed that nitrogen under alpha-particle
Atom economy Atom economy Atom economy (atom efficiency) is the conversion efficiency of a chemical process in terms of all atoms involved and the desired products produced. Atom economy is an important concept of green chemistry philosophy, and one of the most widely used metrics for measuring the "greenness" of a process or synthesis. Atom economy can be written as: For a Multi step process, where the intermediates are formed in one step and consumed during a later step % Atom Economy = Mol Weight (G)/ (Mol Wt (A + B+ D + F) Atom economy is a different concern than chemical