Question: what does an atom consist of

Alexander Allen answered on 12 Mar 2019:

I LOVE this question.

Ok so atoms are made of smaller particles – let’s just label these and explain them. The most important particle is called the proton, it’s positively charged and it is a tiny positively charged particle which not only shows how heavy an atom is, it also defines how it should respond as a nuclear particle… Gold is very stable whereas Uranium will want to break apart because it’s too big!

So we understand that the nucleus of an atom is made of a group of positive charges but we know from electricity that they want to repel each other… They need a neutral particle to act like a wall and that’s what neutrons do… They stop protons from existing on their own and repelling away, like referees breaking up a fight.

The nucleus of an atom is full of positively charged protons and an atom hates to be charged. the Neutron stops the charges from getting too close but the charge attracts very small negatively charged particles that like to orbit around the atom… they are called electrons and they balance out the charge… the problem is that sometimes it’s better for two charged atoms to share electrons… If this happen that is basically the foundation of chemistry…

You can break atoms into smaller particles and when you do they have super interesting behaviours!