
Arturo O. answered 05/25/20
Experienced Physics Teacher for Physics Tutoring
An energetic neutron collides with a nitrogen nucleus and is captured by the nucleus. The nitrogen nucleus becomes unstable and ejects a proton, resulting in a nucleus of carbon with the same mass number as the nitrogen nucleus before the collision. The nuclear reaction is
147N + 10n → 146C + 11p
Note how nucleon number and charge number are conserved.