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Asked by 552rdme39 to Adrian, Gaia, Jim, Scott, Vicky on 5 Mar 2016.
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Adrian Buzatu answered on 5 Mar 2016:
Nothing. Just space. The atom is therefore mostly empty. Of course, this space is empty of matter, but it is filled with the electric field generated by the electric charges of the electrons and nucleus, making the electrons move round the nucleus.
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Scott Lawrie answered on 7 Mar 2016:
The size of atoms is really hard to get your head around. For example, if an atom (the orbital radius of electrons) were the size of a room, the nucleus in the middle would only be about as big as a full stop at the end of this sentence. Most of an atom is empty space! However saying that, electrons aren’t just at a fixed distance from the nucleus like the planets are from the sun. They can be thought of as everywhere: even the electrons in your body and mine are overlapping to a tiny extent! It’s just that the electrons are MOST LIKELY to be at a certain distance from the nucleus.
Comments
552rdme39 commented on :
say this is the full stop is the electron and the o is the nucleus what is where the arrow is pointing
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sorry for the bad diagram i hope it make sense and thanks
Adrian commented on :
I rewrote my original answer. I had misread the question to “what is the difference between the electron and the nucleus”.
552rdme39 commented on :
oh okay thanks
552rdme39 commented on :
okay so why don’t you get a vacuum in that space which would cause some interesting effects, wouldn’t it