Want help in imagining the insides of an atom? Well, Phrenopolis has done a great job of it online. As he explains:
"A hydrogen atom is only about a ten millionth of a millimeter in diameter, but the proton in the middle is a hundred thousand times smaller, and the electron whizzing around the outside is a thousand times smaller than THAT. The rest of the atom is empty. I tried to picture it, and I couldn't. So I put together this page - and I still can't picture it."
Visit his hydrogen atom scale model and scroll the hell over allll the waaaay to the end.
...thanks for sending me to Phrenopolis. This guy is monumentally witty. You must also be sure to read about him reconstructing the solar system, to scale, on Stinson Beach, CA. (Pluto ends up in the nearby town of Bolinas, and, not to give anything away, but halfway through the reconstruction there is a cataclysm). http://www.phrenopolis.com/perspective/stinson2004/index.html
Posted by: Hugh Powell | July 17, 2006 at 10:53 AM
It illustrates a good point but misleads on a more important one I think. Quantum effects are more or less fully in swing at this scale, so an electron doesn't have a "size" in the way we talk about bigger things. Even if you numerically solved the Schroedinger or Dirac equation for an attosecond of an electron's orbital life, it's probable "location" would be a smear...I believe. That's life for an electron. That model is sort of a Picasso portrait.
Posted by: MT | July 17, 2006 at 11:44 AM
Isn't that photo of Neptune? The white spot hidden by the word "proton" looks kinda familiar...
Posted by: Poppycock | July 17, 2006 at 02:01 PM
I was thinking of a mosquito flying around a winnebago. Funny, MT, that you should use the word "smear".
Posted by: Karmen | July 17, 2006 at 09:13 PM