Neutrons were discovered in 1932, more than 10 years after the existence of isotopes was confirmed. what property of electrons and protons led to their discovery? suggest a possible reason why neutrons were the last of the three classic subatomic particles to be discovered.

Protons and neutrons are the sub-atomic particles present in the nucleus of an atom where as electrons are present revolving round the nucleus in orbits. Electrons are negatively charged, protons are positively charged where as a neutron is a neutral species. It is the presence of electric charge that lead to the discovery of electrons (negative charge) and protons (positive charge), while it took time to discover neutral as they were electrically neutral species. Neutrons carrying no charge were not detected easily by passing electromagnetic radiations. Therefore, neutrons were the last of the three subatomic particles, to be discovered.

explanation:

metals have excess of electrons whereas non-metals have deficiency of electrons. thus, in order to gain stability metals easily donate their electrons to the non-metals.

for example, electronic configuration of sodium is and electronic configuration of phosphorous is .

when a phosphorous atom and sodium atom combine together then sodium will donate is extra one electron to the phosphorous atom. as a result there will be formation of ionic bond between sodium and phosphorous.

the reaction will be as follows.

there, are three sodium sodium atoms and each of them will donate its one extra electron to phosphorous atom. thus, the sub-shell of phosphorous gets completely filled.  

thus, we can conclude that electrons are transferred from atoms of sodium to atoms of phosphorous. this transfer makes the sodium atoms donate one electron and the phosphorous atoms to gain one electron. as a result, the sodium and phosphorus atoms strongly attract each other.

a polar bond is formed when electrons are shared unevenly between atoms