THE ATOM LAB / EXPLORE THE INVISIBLE
Tiny atom.
Huge discoveries!
Spin it. Pause it. Get inside it.
Travel through three ideas that changed science.
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Tap a particle to discover its job.
Drag to rotate · Scroll or pinch to zoom · Arrow keys to rotate
This classroom picture is static. Drag to look inside from another angle.
A model is an explanation, not a photograph.
Colours, particle sizes and distances are chosen to help you see the ideas. The nucleus and electrons are enlarged to make them visible. Particle sizes are illustrative: they do not represent a mass ratio or actual relative sizes. Motion is illustrative, not a simulation of real electron trajectories. Real atoms are mostly empty space, and electrons do not follow neat planetary paths. Modern models describe where electrons are likely to be found.
These are simplified classroom versions of historical models. Each view uses six electrons for comparison; the Bohr view shows a carbon shell arrangement (2, 4). Rutherford’s nucleus is one positive region. Our Bohr view is a modern classroom adaptation: carbon-12 with six protons and six neutrons. Neutrons were discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, after Bohr’s 1913 model. The neutron discovery ↗