30 Mar

File:Helium atom QM.svg

‎{{int:filedesc}}: Adding the common scale analogy of a sports stadium, putting the six orders of magnitude difference between nucleus & atom into a perspective that people can relate to.
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Revision as of 06:37, 30 March 2013
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depiction of the atomic structure of the [[w:helium|helium]] atom. The darkness of the [[w:electron|electron]] [[w:electron cloud|cloud]] corresponds to the line-of-sight integral over the [[w:probability function|probability function]] of the 1s [[w:atomic orbital|atomic orbital]] of the electron. The magnified [[w:atomic nucleus|nucleus]] is schematic, showing [[w:proton|proton]]s in pink and [[w:neutron|neutron]]s in purple. In reality, the nucleus (and the wavefunction of each of the [[w:nucleon|nucleon]]s) is also spherically symmetric and 1s, and the four particles, each with a different quantum number, like the electrons in the helium atom, are all most likely to be found in the same space, at the exact center of the nucleus. (For more complicated nuclei this is not the case.Thanks to Åke Back.)

depiction of the atomic structure of the [[w:helium|helium]] atom. The darkness of the [[w:electron|electron]] [[w:electron cloud|cloud]] corresponds to the line-of-sight integral over the [[w:probability function|probability function]] of the 1s [[w:atomic orbital|atomic orbital]] of the electron. The magnified [[w:atomic nucleus|nucleus]] is schematic, showing [[w:proton|proton]]s in pink and [[w:neutron|neutron]]s in purple. In reality, the nucleus (and the wavefunction of each of the [[w:nucleon|nucleon]]s) is also spherically symmetric and 1s, and the four particles, each with a different quantum number, like the electrons in the helium atom, are all most likely to be found in the same space, at the exact center of the nucleus. (For more complicated nuclei this is not the case.Thanks to Åke Back.)

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For a scale that humans can more easily relate to, if the atom's diameter were the size of the Olympic Stadium in London, then the nucleus would be found at the center on the field and would fit (all four nucleons) within the diameter of a BB pellet.

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