Atoms and Molecules

Okay. It’s time to study for my quiz on Thursday. What was it about again? Oh, right. It is about Atoms and Molecules. So, some Greek guy named Democritus argued that every single thing in the world was made up of particles so small that it isn’t visible with the human eye. These particles are so small that they can’t be cut in half anymore. The particles that he discovered were named atoms. They were named atoms because this Greek word “Atomos” means “indivisible”. Okay, that isn’t so hard to remember. Democritus discovered that the particles that can’t be cut in half are called atoms originally coming from the Greek word “atomos”. Easy enough, so, what’s next?

 Another person, John Dalton, refined that the idea with his theory that atoms are the smallest part of an element that retains its chemical properties. For example, if you break apart an element, like carbon, it will not be carbon anymore. This is pretty simple, too. Just think about it like a cake. The finished product is a fully made cake, but before that it was flour, eggs, and many more ingredients. If they are just the ingredients, it isn’t cake anymore. I wonder what else you can learn about atoms and molecules…

Wow! This is really interesting. There are three tinier subatomic particles, protons, neutrons, and electrons. In the center of an atom, there is a nucleus, which is made of a cluster of protons and neutrons. The protons have a positive electric charge, while neutrons have no charge. The nucleus is held together by a very strong force called the strong force. The strong force keeps the protons and neutrons from repelling each other. Think of it this way. As you may know, most brothers and sisters fight. The proton is the big perky sister who is always happy, and the neutron is the normal younger brother (it may be the other way around in your perspective; I’m the big sister in this situation…) they are always fighting wanting to walk away from each other, but the parent (strong force) is keeping them together. That makes some sense. I’m the proton and my brother is the neutron.

The nucleus is surrounded by a cloud of electrons that are moving at the speed of light. The electrons have a negative charge that attracts the protons and they live in shells representing different energy levels. You can think of the electron as the third sibling, let’s say another brother. He goes out of control every time the brother and sister fight. He runs away from the two siblings and runs in circles extremely fast, as fast as the speed of light. When he is running, he is running far away from them. For example, if the nucleus was the size of an apple, the electrons would be 5 football fields away! The atoms are so small, that it takes around 10 million atoms to cross a period symbol!

Atoms are arranged by their atomic number on the periodic table. Their atomic number is really their number of protons OR electrons. The reason is because for every proton they have, there is an electron to cancel it out. So, you can think of it like this. In order to have a neutral room, you need it to be even. For every positive person in the room, there is one negative person to even it out.

You might be thinking that you get how atoms work, but how do they build the world? If you aren’t, then just keep reading to find out the answer. Molecules are a bunch of different atoms combined together. Water is an example of a molecule. It has 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom, or H2O for short. Well, now I'm ready for my science test! And, if you are learning about this, you should be too!

Well, I hope you liked it! 

xoxo Teemster! :D