-
Asked by anon-245070 to Ondrej, Jordan, Eleanor, Ed, Christine, Alice on 10 Mar 2020.
-
Eleanor Jones answered on 10 Mar 2020:
This is hard to define since the number of particles will depend on the amount of material that you have. So there isn’t just one solid that has the smallest number of particles.
-
-
Edward Banks answered on 10 Mar 2020: last edited 10 Mar 2020 1:04 pm
It’s a difficult thing to figure out! A reasonable measure of how many particles something has is its density- this measures the mass in a given volume.
One of the least dense materials is a substance called Aerogel, which can have densities as low as 10 kilograms per cubic metre.
On the other end of the spectrum is a Neutron Star; the core of a massive star which is left behind at the end of its life cycle and has finished burning. Neutron stars can be as dense as 100,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms per cubic metre! -
Jordan McElwee answered on 10 Mar 2020:
The amount of particles is very dependent on the size of the sample. However if you set the size then you could work it out (this would be the density). As has been said before, one of the lightest are aerogels (particularly graphene aerogels). These have been put on the petals of a flower without squashing it!
The heaviest is a tough one to say. Technically you could say a black hole, which is soooo heavy that it can actually cause time to stop! But it’s hard to say how heavy it actually is. So I would say the next one (again, has been said before) is a neutron star. A tablespoon of a neutron star would weigh the same amount as Mount Everest!
Comments