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Question Question 17
What are isotopes? How does the existence of isotopes contradict Dalton's atomic theory?
Isotopes are the atoms of the same element with the same atomic number but a different mass number due to the difference in the number of neutrons in their nucleus.
According to Dalton's theory, atoms of an element are identical in all respects like size, mass, density, chemical properties. But isotopes of an element have atoms that have same atomic number i.e. same number of protons and electrons but different mass number i.e. number of neutrons are different. So isotopes differ from each other in their physical properties like density, melting point, boiling point, etc. This is a contradiction to Dalton's atomic theory.