atoms and ions

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From: Miller Creek Middle School (schulist@marin.k12.ca.us)
Date: Thu Mar 10 2005 - 16:03:00 PST 

Message-Id: <EE3448E1-91C0-11D9-A27B-000D93419190@marin.k12.ca.us>
From: Miller Creek Middle School <schulist@marin.k12.ca.us>
Subject: atoms and ions
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:03:00 -0800

A student of mine found a bit of science minutia that he wanted
clarification on (and I couldn't offer him the answer...). Our
textbook says an ion is a "charged particle," rather than a charged
atom. He concluded that an ion cannot be referred to as an atom. I
said I thought an ion could be considered an atom, just an atom with a
charge. It did get me curious about the true meaning of "atom." Is an
ion an atom? Is this all just a bunch of fuss over a little
terminology, or is there a concept out there that I'm missing...

Mike Schulist
Miller Creek Middle School

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