 Hey everybody, Dr. O. We just got done talking about your typical basic atom, now we're going to look at isotopes. So here you see three different versions of carbon. The standard isotope or version of carbon is going to be carbon 12 or 12C. It's called that because its mass number is 12. It has six protons, which makes it carbon, and six neutrons. So six plus six is 12 there. That's going to be a very stable version. Then you see carbon 13 in the middle. It is carbon 13 because it has six protons, but seven neutrons. We don't talk about that one as much, but then carbon 14 has six protons and eight neutrons. That's where the carbon 12, 13, and 14 come from. You'll notice that carbon 13 is still pretty stable. Carbon 12 is very stable. Carbon 14 will be called a heavy isotope, and usually when you take an isotope and it has more neutrons, it becomes unstable, which makes them radioactive. The reason they're radioactive is as these unstable isotopes slowly degrade in what's known as their half-life, how long it takes for half of these unstable isotopes to disappear. That can be 12 years or 12 million years. They're going to be releasing subatomic particles and releasing electromagnetic energy, and this energy can be damaging. So exposure to radioactive isotopes like carbon 14 can damage human cells, cause cancer, cause birth defects, these kind of things, but they're still important for many reasons. Now because we know the half-life of carbon 14, we can use that for what's called carbon dating. If you can control the exposure to radioactive isotopes, then it can be useful in medicine. Think about radioactive iodine. That's actually a treatment for hyperthyroidism. We know it's radioactive. We know it's going to damage the cells of the thyroid, but that's the whole point. You're trying to destroy the thyroid gland to make someone hypothyroid and then treat that. So if you control it, you can actually use radioactivity in a good way, and then also you have all the radioactive ways that they can measure things in the body too. You've got tremendous amount to know about isotopes, but you should be familiar with that term and where it comes from. This is Isotopes. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.