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Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash |
What is an atom made of?
Let's pretend that an atom looks like this for a minute, to facilitate understanding. An atom consists of 3 elementary particles: neutrons, protons and electrons Protons and neutrons are bonded and form the nucleus of the atom, they are linked together by the strong interaction, one of the four fundamental forces of the universe. They are made of quarks and linked together by gluons. No one knows the exact size of a quark. We think they can literally be points, like in geometry try to imagine them as being in zero dimensions.We suspect that quarks and electrons are the most basic components of matter in the universe. Electrons orbit the nucleus at a speed of 2200km / s they are fast enough to go around the world in 18 seconds. Like quarks, we believe that electrons are fundamental particles. 99, 999 999 999 999% of an atom is just a vacuum. Except it isn't. What we perceive as empty, is actually a space filled with quantum fluctuations fields that have potential energy, appear and disappear spontaneously These fluctuations have a fundamental impact on how particles interact But we’ll cover it in a next post .
How much space does the nucleus and the electrons actually occupy?
If we removed the space between the atomic nuclei of the Empire State Building it would be as big as a grain of rice. All the atoms of humanity would fit in a teaspoon There are extreme objects where these states exist, in a neutron star, the nuclei are compressed so densely that the mass of three suns would fit into an object only a few kilometers wide.In fact, what does an atom look like?
Well ... about that Electrons are like a wave function and a particle at the same time we can calculate where an electron could be at any given time These probability clouds, called orbital, are where the electrons can be with 95% safety the further one moves away from the nucleus, the more the probability of finding an electron approaches 0 but it's never really zero which means that in theory, the electron of an atom can be at the other end of the universe.Okay wait a second, the weird thing that makes up all the matter in the universe, for dozens of known elements, do not need dozens of elementary particles. In fact. Just three. Take a proton and an electron, and you have hydrogen, a proton and a neutron, and you have helium some more, you have carbon, even more, fluorine, always more, gold, etc ... And all the atoms of an element are the same All the hydrogen atoms in the universe for example, are the same the hydrogen in your body is exactly the same as that in the Sun.
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