What is an atom | Matter | Physics | FuseSchool

What is an atom | Matter | Physics | FuseSchool

Atoms are tiny particles that are so small they are not possible to see with the naked eye, and are only barely possible to make out with the most powerful microscopes. Everything that exists in our universe is made up of atoms – including you, I and the device you’re watching this on! In fact, there are about 7 billion billion billion atoms in your body alone.

In this video we are going to look at what atoms are made of, and the mass and size of atoms, and the arrangement of electrons in an atom.Atoms may be tiny particles themselves but they are made of even smaller particles, called subatomic particles.

Atoms consist of a central nucleus that contains protons and neutrons. Protons are positively charged (+1) and neutrons have no charge. This makes the nucleus overall positively charged.
Much like how the sun has planets orbiting it, the nucleus has electrons orbiting. Electrons have a negative charge (-1). Because electrons are negatively charged and the nucleus is positively charged, they are electrostatically attracted to each other, like how gravity ensures attraction between planets and the sun.

So that’s the general structure of an atom, what about its mass and size? Protons and neutrons have the same mass, but electrons are so small they weigh almost nothing in comparison to protons and neutrons. In fact they are about 2000 times lighter. As a result, the mass of an atom is concentrated at its nucleus.

So that’s the mass of an atom, but what about it’s size? One way to describe the size of an atom is its radius. The radius of an atoms is the distance from its centre, where the nucleus is, to the outermost shell of electrons. The radius of an atom is typically 10-10m.

So the majority of the mass of an atom is contained in its nucleus, but in terms of size the nucleus is much smaller than the atom as a whole. In fact, electrons can orbit really far away from the nucleus. If the atom was the size of a sports arena, the nucleus could be the size of a pea in the middle!

Let’s finish off by looking at the electrons in a little more detail.
Negatively charged electrons orbit around the positive nucleus in specific orbits or shells. Different atoms have different numbers of shells (or orbitals).

Each shell is of a specific energy level, meaning an electron must possess a certain amount of energy to reside in a certain shell. Electrons in shells closest to the nucleus have the least energy, and electrons in the outermost shells have the highest energy levels.
In other words, electrons orbit the nucleus similar to how planets orbit the sun; however, electrons can only orbit at specific distances and with specific energies.

We will look at the differences in structure of atoms of different elements and the periodic table in this video

So there we have the structure of an atom. Atoms have a positively charged nucleus made up on positive protons and neutral neutrons, which is orbited by negatively charged electrons. The majority of the mass of an atom [10-23g] is found in the nucleus, and the typical size of atoms is 10-10m.

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[videoawesomeness]

2:32
This is how people should be. Surrounded by negative, orbited by negative, yet still staying strong, staying positive. Forever.

[thingocangnguyen]

Short and very direct.Visuals support the content very well!

[cozeo]

If here for school here are some notes from this.

Protons are + charged
neutrons are neutral
electrons are - charged
the nucleus is protons and neutrons.
Protons and neutrons attract.
Electrons stay away from them
Protons and neutrons have the same mass and electrons are way smaller than them
Electrons are 2k times lighter than protons and neutrons.
The majority of an atoms mass is the Nucleus

[alexacraney]

This was pretty helpful. I had to watch this for class.

[amberreally]

Thats so interesting! I never thought about it that. The neutrons work the same way as the solar system, good video!

[smevan]

everybody here for school and im here just cuz i was curious about atoms

[siddharthsaju]

Thanks for helping me with my studies.
I am finding it very easy due to these videos.

[loonyhype]

I’m in middle school and my teacher expects me to understand the text in my school book, when the school book has this “special” method of teaching topics with questions. 70% of the lessons are questions. And to answer the questions, you need to have special equipment(the equipments are at school and collecting dust, as always, because the teacher never uses them). You can’t just imagine things that make sense when you have no visuals. Sad that I can’t go to my tutor. I got my hands on the teachers’ book that was given only to physics teachers(my tutor gave it to me before things went down). That book has answers to all the questions and is more helpful than the students’ version.
I just wish they could stop with these “special” methods, like bitch- not everyone is born a genius. It’s bad enough already when your teacher explained gravity by dropping the pen on her desk a year ago(she did that 6-or-so times for different topics. Is that like a thing for physics teachers?)

[jayden_playzroblox]

Thank you so much for sharing these informations!!!!

[philiphodgesnz]

electrons dont orbit like planets - you didnt mention the wave function, which is crucial

[LexieBears]

wow I learned what we got taught in class amazing love online school I should be watching run bts I cant even

[callumturner]

Who else is here cause of their teacher?

[sinanaghdi]

hello, i am a chemistry teacher from turkey and i wanna know that with which software you built this video ?

[zakbilly]

hello to anyone i have an honest question, if the max amount of electrons would be 7*8=56 (the periods) - 6 because the first shell has 2 electrons then how do many atoms have more than 50 atomic number

[ericcartman]

this is good but online school is so boring

[andrewkim]

whose here to see people say "Who's here from online school?"

[adambarclay]

Don't you mean that most of the mass of an Atom is concentrated at it's nucleus? not the electron? 1:40

[claudiarapisarda]

Where is part 2 of this video as stated at 3:13? Can not find this video through a search.

[pranavdupati]

One edit is needed in 2:58-outermost shell has the lowest energy and vice versa.

[sevensea]

i have a theory! why atom are like. 1st we need to adapt the theory of nicola tesla " 3, 6 and 9 " are supposed to be the key to universe. Now we take " 3 " as the cold state. 9 as the hot state and 6 as the in between. there are 3 distinctive atomic features in reality. The hard, the soft and the air. Now stones are made of atoms so they are hard. the water are soft. the air are airy. if the nucleus is standard state or permanent the sub-atomic particles could be either of the 3 distinctive features. then the theory of nicola tesla can determine if the nucleus can go to i forgot sorry. i've taken the i.q test then this theory just went in a flash. maybe i will remember this soon. thank you.