2100: Models of the Atom

2019-01-18T07:13:16Z

Badbadger: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2100
| date = January 18, 2019
| title = Models of the Atom
| image = models_of_the_atom.png
| titletext = J.J. Thompson won a Nobel Prize for his work in electricity in gases, but was unfairly passed over for his "An atom is plum pudding, and plum pudding is MADE of atoms! Duuuuude." theory.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CONFUSED ATOM. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic humorously describes the changing view of how atoms work.

The first model shown, in 1810, is said to be a "small hard ball model." Around this time, {{w|John Dalton}} came up with the most famous maxim of chemistry: "All stuff is made of atoms." Dalton used the idea to explain what is today known as stoichiometry. Thus humans thought up the idea of atoms-- but in lieu of any ideas of how they work, the scientific community likely thought of them as "hard round balls"; thus the name described here.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the study of these "atom" things faced a crisis: where would the newly discovered "electrons" go? In 1904, physicist {{w|J. J. Thomson}}, who discovered electrons, had an idea: maybe the electrons were small point charges moving around in a big mass of positive charge. This was the "plum pudding model," the second model on the comic, called this because people imagined the positively charged mass as a "plum pudding." (The title text references Thomson as well, along with the humorous observation that plum puddings themselves are made of atoms.)

This was one of many competing ideas in the formative years of what-are-atoms-made-of-ology, where Randall claims a 1907 "tiny bird model" (the third model shown) would fit in well. But ultimately, the tentative winner in the battle was the model of Thomson's student {{w|Ernest Rutherford}}, who discovered that the positive charge seemed to be in the center of the atom, and put down his Rutherford model, or "planetary model," in 1911, where electrons orbit a positive charge. This is the fourth model put down.

But there were a few problems; {{w|Maxwell's equations}} complained, for instance, saying that the electrons would quickly orbit into the nucleus, emitting light in the process. Niels Bohr patched the model up with the newfangled idea of quantum mechanics, creating his "Bohr model," the fifth model shown here, in 1913.

If this sounds like today's model, you didn't pay enough attention; note that at this time, nobody thought of splitting up the nucleus into protons and neutrons. But pretty soon people noticed that protons and neutrons existed; Randall facetiously suggests a "nunchuck model," the sixth model shown, of a packet of protons swinging a packet of electrons around. But more seriously, {{w|James Chadwick}}, who discovered the neutron, figured that the atom had a nucleus of neutrons and protons, along with a bunch of electrons orbiting around it in a Bohrish manner. This is what the layman today often thinks of as an atom, and is the the seventh model shown here.

(The eighth model shown is a "538 model" in 2008. 538 is a statistical analysis website that gained fame in 2008 for predicting every race but 2 correctly in the presidential election. It has since been known for making mathematical models for everything; the model jokingly suggests that 538 has modeled and presumably made predictions about the atom.)

But is the Chadwick model what scientists endorse today? No! Today physicists subscribe to a quantum model, which is the ninth model shown here. Instead of electrons, there are quantum clouds. This is very abstract, and in the last model, the model is postulated to get so abstract that it is just a "small hard ball surrounded by math" model, the last model shown.

538 model is likely named after "fivethirtyeight.com" [https://fivethirtyeight.com/], which is a news website. The pie chart shows the composition of neutrons, protons and electrons, 38%, 31%, and 31% respectively. This could represent gallium-69, the most abundant isotope of gallium, with 31 protons, 31 electrons and 38 neutrons.

The quantum model is the current Model of the atom, it describes atoms that follow quantum mechanics, or more simply, the parts of the atom aren't in any particular point, but rather a probability field of possible locations.

The "Small Hard Ball Surrounded by Math" model is an entertaining idea, and similar to how an uninformed person may first think of the quantum model.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

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2100: Models of the Atom