Atoms come in all different shapes and sizes. We do know how small an atom is but we aren't sure exactly what the diameter that the diameter of an atom is .1 to .5 nanometers. Obviously the nucleus and electrons are much smaller than the atom itself. So we don’t really know sizes for the parts of an atom. But scientists estimated the electrons to be 200,000 times smaller than the nucleus. Also the outer electron field is about 100,000 larger than the nucleus.
Here are some examples of how small the atom really is:
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There was this example of the gold leaf. A woman took a sheet of gold and pressed it, this process took about an hour. Then she cut the gold into small pieces and layered them with special paper. Finally she pounded the layers of gold and paper about 100,000 times. They are so small that if you made a bible with gold leaf, it would be no thicker than a piece of paper. Although each gold leaf is many hundred atoms thick. |
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Another example of the relative size of an atom was demonstrated with olive oil. A quarter teaspoon of olive oil was poured on a small pond. After 8 minutes the olive oil spread about 200 square yards. That’s about 1/5,000,000th of an inch thick. This isn’t even the size of and atom. This is a cluster of the atoms together. It’s much bigger than atom, which is 1/120,000,000 of an inch thick. |
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Chef Mark started out with one noodle. He folded it 12 times and had 4096 noodles. At this point the noodles were almost the thickness of a single strand of human hair. If he folded the noodles 30 more times he would have reached atomic size. |
If you would like to know more about atoms itself please refer to my "What atoms are really like" page, Linked from my homepage or at the bottom of this page.
