THE STRUCTURE OF ATOM AND THE RECENT THEORIES TO DESCRIBE THE ATOM

Prepared by: Zeinab Khaled, grade 11, AIA.

 Part 1: THE STRUCTURE OF ATOM

 Structure of the atom, Nucleus and shells

An atom has a central nucleus. This is surrounded by electrons arranged in shells or orbits.

The nucleus is tiny compared to the atom as a whole:

 the radius of an atom is about 0.1 nm (1 × 10-10 m)

 the radius of a nucleus (1 × 10-14 m) is less than 1/10000 of the radius of an atom

For comparison, the radius of a typical bacterium is 1 × 10-6 m and the radius of a human hair is
about 1 × 10-4 m.

 Subatomic particles
The nuclei of all atoms contain subatomic particles called protons. The nuclei of most atoms also
contain neutrons.

Fig1: The structure of a carbon atom, not drawn to scale

The masses of subatomic particles are very tiny. Instead of writing their actual masses in
kilograms, we often use their relative masses. The relative mass of a proton is 1, and a particle
with a relative mass smaller than 1 has less mass.

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The mass of an electron is very small compared to a proton or a neutron. Since the nucleus contains
protons and neutrons, most of the mass of an atom is concentrated in its nucleus.

Protons and electrons have electrical charges that are equal and opposite.

 Part 2: THE RECENT THEORIES TO DESCRIBE THE ATOM

 Rutherford's Hypothesis

British physicist Ernest Rutherford proposed a nuclear model of the atom, in

which a nucleus exists, in 1911. He also discovered activity in this part, namely
the movement of protons and electrons within the central part of the atom. He
further postulated that the number of protons in an atom equals that of the
electrons. He also hypothesized that more neutral particles exist. These have come
to be known as neutrons.

 Bohr's Theory

Danish physicist Niels Bohr proposed in 1913 a planetary model, in which

electrons revolve about the nucleus just as the planets orbit the sun. While the
electrons are in orbit, they have what Bohr termed "constant energy." When these
particles absorb energy and transition into a higher orbit, Bohr's theory refers to
them as "excited" electrons. When the electrons return to their original orbit, they
give off this energy as electromagnetic radiation.

 Einstein, Heisenberg and Quantum Mechanics

From decades of painstaking research from thousands of scientists, the current

atomic theory builds on work done in the 1930s by Albert Einstein, Werner
Heisenberg and others. As with the earlier theories, the atom consists of a central,
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 heavy nucleus surrounded by a number of electrons. Unlike earlier theories that
treated electrons, protons and other tiny particles as definite solid "lumps,"
modern quantum theory treats them as statistical "clouds;" oddly, you can measure
their speed exactly, or their locations, but not both at the same time. Instead of
electrons behaving as planets orbiting in well-behaved elliptical paths, they whirl
around in fuzzy clouds of various shapes. Atoms, then become less like hard,
precise billiard balls and more like springy, round sponges. And despite being
"solid" matter, they can exhibit wavelike properties such as wave length and
interference patterns.

 Quark Theory

As scientists looked at atoms with increasingly more powerful instruments, they

discovered that the protons and neutrons that made up the nucleus were in turn
made of even smaller particles. In the 1960s, physicists Murray Gell-Mann and
George Zweig called these particles "quarks," borrowing a word used in a James
Joyce novel. Quarks come in varieties such as "up," "down," "top" and "bottom."
Protons and neutrons are formed from bundles of three quarks each: "up," "down"
and "up" and "down," "up" and "down," respectively.

_________________________END of RESEARCH________________________