9 THE MIGHTY ATOM
EIN AND ively unraveling tructure oftruggling to understand someto in its as remote: tiny and ever- mysterious atom.
t Caltec Ric if you o reducescientific ory to one important statement it oms.” titute every t is all atoms. Not just tables and sofas, but t you really cannot conceive.
t of atoms is tin for “little mass”).
A molecule is simply toms ogetablearrangement: add toms of o one of oxygen and you er.
Cs tend to terms of molecules rats in mucers tend to terms of letters, so it is molecules t, and to say t. At sea level, at a temperature of 32 degrees Fa, onecubic centimeter of air (t is, a space about tain 45 billionbillion molecules. And timeter you see around you. timeters tside your ake to fill t vie ake to build a universe.
Atoms, in s, are very abundant.
tastically durable. Because toms really get around.
Every atom you possess certainly passed tars and been part ofmillions of organisms on its o becoming you. e are eacomically numerous andso vigorously recycled at deat a significant number of our atoms—up to a billion foreac ed—probably once belonged to Sorical figureyou care to name. (to be orical, apparently, as it takes tomssome decades to become tributed; , you arenot yet one ions—t-lived ones. oms o find neoms, ically forever. Nobody actually kno according to Martin Rees it is probably about 1035years—a numberso big t even I am o express it in notation.
Above all, atoms are tiny—very tiny indeed. o