Question

Plutonium-239 is used in nuclear bombs determine the number of protons and neutrons in plutonium-239 and enter its symbol in the form azx.

Answer 1

Plutonium-239 is used in nuclear bombs, here 239 is its mass number. For an atom, mass number is equal to sum of number of protons and neutrons.

Thus,

A=n+p=239...... (1)

From periodic table, the atomic number of plutonium is 94 which is equal to number of electron and proton in an atom.

Thus,

Z=p=94

Putting the value of p in equation (1)

n=239-94=145

The symbol is as follows:

$_{Z}^{A}\textrm{X}$

Here, Z is atomic number, A is mass number and X is atom symbol thus, symbol for plutonium will be:

$_{94}^{239}\textrm{Pu}$

Therefore, number of protons, neutrons and symbol is 94, 145 and  $_{94}^{239}\textrm{Pu}$respectively.