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Unit 3: Matter Page 16
atom that you exhaled. At any Electron Shells
moment you have atoms in your
lungs that were once in the lungs So why did
of every person who ever lived! they ever think
EVERY PERSON WHO EVER LIVED! electrons
Wow! So in your lungs right now orbited the
are atoms that were once in nucleus? Well,
Newton, Einstein, Tesla, Watt, Jane just like the
Goodall, John Armstrong, my Uncle Earth stays a
Harry and many more! certain distance from the Sun, the
electron stays a certain distance
Electron “Orbits” from the nucleus as it pops in and
out of existence. The reason they
Remember, that atoms are made stay a certain distance is due to
up of protons and neutrons that one of the strangest things in
are in the center of an atom (the science and that’s the
nucleus) and electrons that are wave/particle duality nature of
moving around outside the electrons. Electrons act like waves,
nucleus. Now hold on to your hats, and like particles at the same time!
here’s where things start to get a
bit goofy. Electrons don’t really That concept is one of the keys to
move around the nucleus...they quantum physics and gets a little
pop in and out of existence around deeper (like seventeen miles
the nucleus. They exist in one spot, deeper) than we are going to go in
then “pow”, they disappear and this lesson, so we’ll leave it at that
reappear in another spot. Then for now. Suffice it to say that they
“boink” off they go again and “zip” do stay a certain distance from the
they are back again. Here’s a fun nucleus. Since scientists are trying
question...where do they go? to get away from the “orbit”
That’s an answer that, at this concept, they are now calling these
point, nobody knows. You may run areas the electrons move in
into some older books or websites “shells”.
that still refer to electrons orbiting
around the nucleus like the planets A nice way to visualize this is to
orbit around the sun. That’s the think about a balloon with a teeny
way folks used to think it worked, tiny ball bearing in the middle of it.
but lo and behold, the teeny tiny The ball bearing would represent
electron is like nothing else in the the nucleus and the balloon would
universe. represent the shell. The electrons
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