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
Rydberg atom correspondence principle. In other words, the electron's orbit resembles the orbit of planets inside a solar system, similar to what was seen in the obsolete but visually useful Bohr and Rutherford models of the atom. There are three notable exceptions that can be characterized by the additional term added to the potential energy: Quantum-mechanically, a state with abnormally high "n" refers to an atom in which the valence electron(s) have been excited into a formerly unpopulated electron orbital with higher energy and lower binding energy. In hydrogen the binding energy is given by: where "Ry" = 13.6 eV is the