Atom the nucleus defines to what chemical element the atom belongs: for example, all copper atoms contain 29 protons. The number of neutrons defines the isotope of the element. The number of electrons influences the magnetic properties of an atom. Atoms can attach to one or more other atoms by chemical bonds to form chemical compounds such as molecules. The ability of atoms to associate and dissociate is responsible for most of the physical changes observed in nature and is the subject of the discipline of chemistry. The idea that matter is made up of discrete units is a very old
Vector model of the atom considered the extension of the Bohr model because Niels Bohr also proposed angular momentum was quantized according to: where "m" is an integer, produced correct results for the Hydrogen atom. Although the Bohr model doesn't apply to multi-electron atoms, it was the first successful quantization of angular momentum applied to the atom, preceding the vector model of the atom. For one-electron atoms (i.e. hydrogen), there is only one set of cones for the orbiting electron. For multi-electron atoms, there are many states, due to the increasing number of electrons. The angular momenta of all electrons in the atom add vectorially.