Around made of school series 22

 Atoms — What Everything Around Us Is Made Of

We learnt that everything is made of atoms. It was easy to remember and difficult to imagine.

Look around us: a table, a tree, a glass of water, the air we breathe, our own bodies. All are made from atoms.

An atom is incredibly small. At its centre is a nucleus, containing protons and neutrons. Around the nucleus are electrons.

The number of protons determines which element the atom is.

For example:

1 proton → Hydrogen

6 protons → Carbon

8 protons → Oxygen

13 protons → Aluminium

28 protons → Nickel

The Periodic Table we began this School Series with is essentially a wonderfully organised map of these different kinds of atoms.

Atoms can join together to form molecules and compounds. Two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, for instance, make a molecule of water — H₂O.

And here is the astonishing part: although atoms are unimaginably small, they are the building blocks of everything we can see, touch and even breathe.

The chair we sit on, the food we eat, the stars we see in the sky and we ourselves are all arrangements of atoms.

We began this series with the Periodic Table and travelled through electricity, water, light, the human body, DNA, evolution, the Solar System, friction and pressure.

Now we come back to the smallest level.

The world around us looks solid and continuous. But beneath it is an astonishing universe of tiny particles, constantly interacting and rearranging themselves.

And perhaps that is the perfect place to pause our first journey through The School Series:

Everything begins with atoms.