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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Fact of the Day for October 8, 1999
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How big can an atom be?
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The largest normal atoms are those of cesium, a highly reactive
metal. A cesium atom is large because the outermost electron is not
very tightly held, so the electron's orbital (the space in which it
can be found) is quite large. A neutral cesium atom is about 6.68
angstroms across (0.0000000263 inch), which is not much bigger than
many other normal atoms.
But atoms can get much bigger by absorbing energy. If an atom
absorbs a photon of light, an electron can jump into a larger
orbital, making the atom larger. Such electrons are easily lost,
leaving the atom smaller than a normal one. The energized electron
can also re-emit the light photon, restoring the atom's normal size.
In the real world, energized atoms almost always emit a light photon
or lose their outer electron within a fraction of a second. But it's
theoretically possible for an atom to be energized to any size, even
as large as the whole universe.
More about atoms:
http://library.advanced.org/17940/texts/atom/atom.html
Cesium is element number 55 in the Periodic Table:
http://klbproductions.com/yogi/periodic/Cs.html
How light emissions by atoms led to the photon theory of light
(advanced):
http://www.physics.gmu.edu/classinfo/astr103/CourseNotes/Text/
Lec03/Lec03_pt5_txt_matterRadiationPhoton.htm
More Cool Facts about atoms:
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1998/01/21.html
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1998/11/30.html
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1999/01/22.html
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