What is the total number of protons neutrons and electrons in sodium and chlorine after they interact?

First split salt into its components Na-Sodium and Cl-Chlorine; take a look at the Periodic Table and you'll see the atomic number (at the top of the box of an element) that number is how many protons are in the element, so you add the atomic number for sodium-11 to the atomic number for chlorine-17 and you get 28 protons all together in salt, that means that you must also have 28 electrons (the number of electrons must be the same as the number of protons). Now to solve for neutrons take a look at the number at the bottom of the periodic table (known as the mass number or amu or Atomic Mass units-not shown on all periodic tables so you may have to look it up) for Sodium it's 22.98977 and for Chlorine it's 35.4527 now what that means is the weighted average mass of all the isotopes of the element, what you can do is round that number to 23 and 35, then add those two numbers together making 58 ( the total number of protons + neutrons) then subtract 28 from 58 to give you 30 neutrons (though the number of neutrons varies depending on the isotope of the elements 30 neutrons is the most common isotope of salt). That leaves you with a grand total of 28 protons, 28 electrons, and 30 neutrons.