We started off this week talking about planets, galaxies and the universe. It sounds like a paradox that although these things are so huge we can't really see them. However, what about the existence of tiny things?
According to multiple people on the internet the smallest thing that we can see with naked eye is hair. However, it is well known that there are is so much more out there consisting the microworld. For instance, in biology we are taught about cells that are visible using microscopes.
However, cells are still big enough to be considered as units of matter. The word matter is used to describe whatever unit where has a mass. Did you ever find yourself wondering what’s out there that is smaller than a cell? Or perhaps what is cells consisting of? The smallest matter unit known are the atoms.
So, atoms have their own structure, specifically each atom contains a central nucleus and electron(s) that are attracted by the nucleus due to the fact that the nucleus is opposite charged from the electrons.
Okay, that might be slightly challenging to understand but the simplest way to understand it read about the third Law of Newton where a negatively charged and a positively charged object will be attracted.
Now we also mentioned the term nucleus which is broadly by nuclear physics. That might sound scary but this field is extremely interesting if you want to know more about the atomic nuclei.
“Okay Ath, and what about electrons”. Here is where we need to pay much more attention. Electrons are consisting atoms such as protons and neutrons that compose the atomic nuclei. All these electrons, protons and neutrons are called sub-atomic particles.
Those sub-atomic particles are incalculably and therefore, we believe that particles are further consisted of something else.
Wikipedia (2020): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subatomic_particle#cite_note-2
Wikipedia (2020): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom