Question

What is an element?

Answer 1

Elements are any substance that cannot be decomposed into simpler substances by ordinary chemical processes. Elements are the fundamental materials of which all matter is composed. Chemical element. Examples of elements include carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, gold, silver and iron.

Complete answer:
An element is a pure substance consisting only of atoms that all have the same numbers of protons in their atomic nuclei. It is a substance that cannot be broken down into any other substance. Every element is made up of its own type of atom. This is why the chemical elements are all very different from each other. Everything in the universe contains the atoms of at least one or more elements.
The periodic table has 118 confirmed elements, from element $1$ (hydrogen) to $118$ (oganesson). The lightest chemical elements are hydrogen and helium, both created by Big Bang nucleosynthesis during the first $20$minutes of the universe along with tiny traces of the next two elements, lithium and beryllium. Almost all other elements found in nature were made by various natural methods of nucleosynthesis. Small amounts of new atoms are naturally produced in nucleogenic reactions, or in cosmogenic processes, such as cosmic ray spallation.

Note:
The atomic number of an element is equal to the number of protons in each atom, and defines the element. For example, all carbon atoms contain six protons in their atomic nucleus. So the atomic number of carbon is 6. Carbon atoms may have different numbers of neutrons; atoms of the same element having different numbers of neutrons are known as isotopes of the element.