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if the size of a nucleus(in the range of 1/1000000000000000 to 1/100000000000000 m) is scaled up to the tip of a sharp pin. what roughly is the size of an atom ? Assume tip of the pin to be in the range of 1/100000 m to 1/10000 m. |
An atom is a complex arrangement of negatively charged electrons
arranged in defined shells about a positively charged nucleus. This
nucleus contains most of the atom's mass and is composed of protons and
neutrons (except for common hydrogen which has only one proton). All
atoms are roughly the same size. A convenient unit of length for
measuring atomic sizes is the angstrom (Å), which is defined as 1 x 10-10 meters. The diameter of an atom is approximately 2-3 Å. The size of a nucleus is in the range of 10-15 m and 10–14 m. The tip of a sharp pin is taken to be in the range of 10–5 m and 10–4 m. Thus we are scaling up by a factor of 1010. An atom roughly of size 10–10 m will be scaled up to a size of 1 m. Thus, a nucleus in an atom is as small in size as the tip of a sharp pin placed at the center of a sphere of radius about a meter long. |