Atoms are 99.9999999999999 per cent empty space. As Tom Stoppard put it: "Make a fist, and if your fist is as big as the nucleus...
Atoms are
99.9999999999999 per cent empty space. As Tom Stoppard put it: "Make a
fist, and if your fist is as big as the nucleus of an atom, then the atom is as
big as St Paul's, and if it happens to be a hydrogen atom, then it has a single
electron flitting about like a moth in an empty cathedral, now by the dome, now
by the altar."If you forced all the
atoms together, removing the space between them, crushing them down so the all
those vast empty cathedrals were compressed into the first-sized nuclei, a
single teaspoon or sugar cube of the resulting mass would weigh five billion
tons; about ten times the weight of all the humans who are currently alive.Incidentally, that is
exactly what has happened in a neutron star, the super-dense mass left over
after a certain kind of supernova.
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