FHSST Physics/Atomic Nucleus

Inside atomic nucleus

Amazingly enough, the human mind that is contained inside a couple of liters of human's brain, is able to deal with extremely large as well as extremely small objects such as the whole universe and its smallest building blocks. So, what are these building blocks? As we already know, the universe consists of galaxies, which consist of stars with planets moving around. The planets are made of molecules, which are bound groups (chemical compounds) of atoms.

There are more than stars in the universe. Currently, scientists know over 12 million chemical compounds i.e. 12 million different molecules. All this variety of molecules is made of only a hundred of different atoms. For those who believe in beauty and harmony of nature, this number is still too large. They would expect to have just few different things from which all other substances are made. In this chapter, we are going to find out what these elementary things are.