A2. How to Visualize atom?

"If an apple was magnified to the size of the Earth, then the atoms in the apple would be approximately the size of the original apple." - Richard Feynman.

 From the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus (around 460 B. S. ago) through now's a day, we have to ponder that what ordinary matter is made of? What is the basic unit of matter? What is it made of? What everything around us is made of? What we eat? What we see? What we touch? Etc.

We know all, that is ATOM.

Atoms are so small that is very difficult for the human mind to comprehend their size. The diameter of an atom range from about 0.1 to 0.5 nanometer (1 × 10^-10 m to 5 × 10^-10 m). Everything (matter) in the visible universe is made up of atoms, the amount of atoms is that matter is incredible.

Magnifying the ATOM

But how can we visualize that very small atom? What does it look like? To understand this problem, here are some simple demonstration:

• From a book entitled "The Extraordinary chemistry of ordinary things, 3rd Edition" by Carl H. Snyder.

1. Take a pile of paper clips (all of same size & color).
2. Divide the pile into two equal piles. 
3. Divide each of the smaller piles into two equal piles.
4. Repeat step 3 until you are down to a pile containing only one paper clip. That one paper clip still does the job of a paper clip (i.e. hold loose papers together).
5. Now, take a pair of scissors & cut that one paper clip in half. Can half of the paper clip do the same job as the single paper clip?

If you do the same things with any element, you will reach an indivisible part has the same properties of the element, like the single paper clip. This indivisible part is called an 'ATOM'. 

•  Make the structure of an atom easier to visualize by showing how small the nucleus is to the total size of an atom. According to Canada's National Laboratory for particle Physics, if the golf ball represents the nucleus, the first group of electron would be a kilometer away. The second group would be 4 - kilometer away, the third 9 - kilometer away & so on.

 Use another examples to help illustrate the concept of visualize atom:

• If an apple were enlarged to the size of the earth , its individual atoms would be the size of original apple. 

Note: Mean Radius of earth = 6,371 kilometer (≈3,959 mi).

 

Scanning Tunneling microscope

Visualize an atom - compare between Earth & Apple

• Imagine that the nucleus of an atom was the size of our sun. In that case the closest electron would be beyond Mars.

• A single drop of water contains about 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (2*10^21 atoms) atoms of oxygen, and twice that many hydrogen atoms.

• A typical human hair is about 1 million carbon - 12 atoms JUST IN WIDTH.

• There are about 5 millions atoms in the full stop at the end of this sentence.

• Protons are much larger than electrons. One proton is equivalent to 2000 electrons. The difference between them is equivalent to that between a human being & a peanut.