Atoms&Molecules

The Atoms Family



Years ago there were around 2,400 elements. There was a Greek guy named Democritus argued everything in the world was made up of particles so small that they couldn't be cut in half. Democritus called these tiny things Atoms which came from the Greek word Atomos which means indivisible.

Somewhere in the 1800's another guy named John Dalton refined the idea with his theory that atoms are the smallest particle of an element that retain its chemical properties. That means if you were to break apart an atom of an element such as carbon, its not carbon anymore.

Atoms are made up of something smaller then itself. Those things are called Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons. The atom's center, or Nucleus, is a cluster of protons and neutrons. Protons have a positive electrical charge, and neutrons have no electrical charge.

The Nucleus is held together by something called the Strong Force (as in the picture below).

   The inside of a carbon atom is made up of 6 Protons and 6 Neutrons. Electrons surrounds the outside of an atom's nucleus going as fast as the speed of light. If we were able to see the electrons it would look like a fuzzy cloud.