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by Mawgan on March 8th, 2007

Mawgan

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An atom is usually diagramatically shown as small spherical electrons orbiting a nucleus of spherical protons and neutrons. What does an atom look like in real life?

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Answers. 7 helpful answers below.

  • by Tamilze on March 8th, 2007

    Tamilze

    The model you're describing is actually kind of outdated. The one we use now has the electrons moving about randomly in a sphere surrounding the nucleus. One theory actually suggests that the electrons pop in an out of existence.

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  • by Tinkerbell on September 30th, 2007

    Tinkerbell

    They look fuzzy. You can't really "see" into the heart of an atom. When dealing with these concepts "common sense" and everyday terminology fail us completely. The photon (light package) that you would need to "see" an electron say would disturb the electron so much that there is no useful data obtainable such as an image.

    The orbital model you mention is WAY outdated. It is Rutherford's Model and it can't work! When you do the calculations the electrons just fall into the nucleus which of course they don't do in actuality.

    Someone mentioned orbits this is getting there. Electrons really exist as probability waves. The quantized (i.e. they have specific quantities they can take not any old value!) orbit locations are the most likely position for the electron to be in but they could be anywhere in the universe. Electrons have an associated wave function which means the electron could be anywhere but is most likely to be found in the orbitals mentioned.

    Also the nature of quantum reality means that the more precisely you know say the momentum (mass * velocity) of an object the less well you know where it is. SO the idea that if you "slow down" the motion in the atom then you would be able to see a Newtonian (like a solar system) model is false. The more you could accurately tell the position of these objects the less certain you could know the velocity. People tend to think that Quantum Physics is a limitation of our equipment but no. These are restrictions nature itself imposes. SO no matter HOW you tried doing it you will never get back to the old solar system model. It just doesn't work!

    And yes particles DO pop in and out of existence all the time! They also do crazy things like tunnelling which is like throwing a tennis ball at a brick wall and having it appear on the other side of the wall! This has all been experimentally verified a vast number of times.

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  • by Quirkie on March 8th, 2007

    Quirkie

    You can't see atoms with light, but you can with a scanning tunnelling microscope.

    Here is a picture of silicon atoms: http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/atoms.htm

    I also saw an amazing picture of the sharpest point ever made: http://www.aip.org/png/2006/264.htm

    It doesn't look that sharp at the scale of atoms of course! You are looking at the rounded end of the needle and the pink and grey blobs are tungsten atoms imaged by their electric potential. The blurry red things are atoms moving while the picture is taken.

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  • by Cuttlefish on March 8th, 2007

    Cuttlefish

    The shape of an atom is determined by its electron shells. These tend to vary in shape, but considered together they form a roughly spherical boundary arounds a lone atom.

    If an atom is bonded to another atom then its electron shell is distorted (due to the electrons being shared or donated) so that it overlaps with the shell of the other atoms.

    It's also worth noting that atoms don't actually "look" like anything, being too small to affect light of visible wavelengths.

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  • by cookies monster on March 25th, 2008

    cookies monster

    when you looks at the atoms, what you c is the electrons clound which dictated by probabilities, hence the shape continueslly varies due to contant interaction with other quantum mechanics.

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  • by Junk Yard Dog on March 8th, 2007

    Junk Yard Dog

    In slow motion they look like our solar system. I real time it would look like a disc or shpere or like saturn.

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  • by wallace on June 24th, 2008

    wallace

    Seems to me that as far as atoms go
    (or anything else for that matter)
    it's all guesswork.
    No one really knows anything for sure.
    It's one theory being replaced by yet ANOTHER THEORY
    over time.

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