• Question: What do you think the atom looks like?

    Asked by jewlz to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 26 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Great question! I am not exactly conventional in my ideas here, but I reckon it would look like a 3 dimensional overlap of waves. A bit likes when you see two waves crash into each other in the sea, but waves coming from above and below too…

    • Photo: Philippa Bird

      Philippa Bird answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      In the literal sense, they have been imaged, and they look like spheres.

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      An atom is mostly space, with a small ball of protons and neutrons in the middle, and a bunch of electrons around the outside. I always imagine that it’s like a messy collection of spheres of different sizes.

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