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FOR AGES 10 AND UP

INFORMATION - ATOM - BASIC

When you break any material into its smallest piece without changing  its chemical properties it is known as Molecule.

And if you further split that molecule its chemical properties changes but it breaks into tiniest particles known as Atoms.

Thus, atom is, so called, the tiniest unit of matter that has all the properties of that matter or Element.

Atom is a particle yet it is not solid.

Atom has space in it.

Every atom has a Nucleus at the center, surrounded by Electrons.

Electrons move around nucleus in a space known as Probability Cloud-in different Orbital in different energy levels.

The nucleus is 100,000 times smaller than the atom and the rest is space.

The nucleus has Protons and Neutrons in it.

NUCLEUS (NEUTRONS & PROTONS) & ELECTRONS	NUCLEUS with moving ELECTRONS

These protons and neutrons give the atom its atomic number and atomic weight.

The number of protons in the nucleus determines which element the atom will be.

The number of orbiting electrons is the same as the number of protons and is termed the "atomic number" of the element.

For example, Hydrogen has one proton and one electron, its atomic number is one.

Helium has two protons and two electrons, its atomic number is two.

Protons are Positively charged particles and electrons are Negatively charged particles.

Neutrons are neutral.

In fact, Proton's positive charge is because it has Positron in it.

Positron is an antimatter version of electron.

These protons and neutrons are further made up of even smaller and, for now, fundamental particles known as Quarks.

Thus, atoms are made of two kind of elementary particles: Leptons, which include electrons and positrons, and quarks.

 It's theorized that a neutron consists of one up quark and two down quarks, whereas a proton consists of two up quarks and one down quark.

These quarks in the protons and neutrons are stick together by Gluons-another kind of particles.

Each quark is theoretically made up of Pre-Quark or Preon.

Each pre-quark may be further made up of even smaller particles, and that into smaller particles, and so on...

The further answer is you-today's children.

There are 6 different species (types), or "Flavors" of quarks. They come in pairs.

They are whimsically called:

Up (u) and Down (d),

Strange (s) and Charm (c), and

Beauty or Bottom (b) and Truth or Top (t).

In 1995, Fermilab in Illinois confirmed the existence of the top quark.

Individual quarks carry a kind of charge just like an electric charge but comes in three varieties called Colors.

Each kind (flavor) of quark instead of being "+" or "-" comes in three 'colors'-"red", "green," and "blue."

The colors are not real but they express a new kind of property of quarks.

Thus, quarks have, so called, colors and flavors-the terms used for their properties, along with spin.

Isn't it amazing. Scientists are poets too!

GREAT!!!

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