Tiny Worlds
Mostly Empty Space
What’s going on
Almost all of an atom’s mass sits in its nucleus, which is roughly 10,000 to 100,000 times smaller across than the whole atom. The rest belongs to its electrons. That space isn’t truly empty: it is filled by the electrons’ clouds of possibility (see Electron Clouds). Things feel solid because electrons repel electrons, and because two electrons can’t crowd into the same state.
Myth
Since atoms are mostly empty, your hand could pass through a table.
Fact
Electric forces and the exclusion principle stop it.
Learn more
E. Rutherford, Philosophical Magazine 21, 669 (1911); OpenStax Chemistry 2e, §2.2.
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