Session 1: Atoms – the building blocks of matter

Introduction

Atoms are the basic building blocks of all the substances around you, rather like letters are used to construct words and hence a language. And a look ‘inside’ an atom is perhaps your best starting point when studying chemistry for the first time. As you will learn from this course, it’s the components of the atom that are crucial to understanding how substances behave in chemical reactions, and the behaviour of particles on the atomic (and sub-atomic) scale is often not what you would expect.

After studying Session 1 you should be able to:

• describe the structure of atoms in terms of protons, neutrons and electrons
• understand what is meant by a chemical element and how they are arranged in the periodic table
• explain what is meant by atomic number and relative atomic mass of a chemical element
• appreciate the impact of quantum mechanics on understanding how electrons are arranged in atoms.