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Atoms and elements

The notion that all matter is made up of atoms is central to modern scientific thought. Yet, as we discussed earlier in the book, atoms are so small- with diameters of less than one nanometre (a billionth of a meter)- that an individual atom can never actually be seen, no matter how powerful the microscope used to examine it.

This is because the size of light particles, to which the human eye is sensitive, are much larger than the diameter of a hydrogen atom. Light in effect is too "big" to be able to pick out any detail in a basic atom's structure.

Nevertheless, it is possible to generate representations of atoms. For example we can use an instrument called the scanning tunneling microscope that can measure the shape and size of the electric (electron) field around an atom; while a procedure called X-ray crystallography can measure the distance between atoms. These techniques strongly support that atoms are discrete units and that different "sized" atoms have different behaviour.

Because we are unable to actually "see" atoms and their component parts, science have used theoretical models of atomic structure for the past hundred years. Increasingly, sophisticated equipment has assisted science in fine tuning and in some cases replacing previous theoretical "models" of atomic structure. Our current basis for chemistry and particle physics is based on the model of valency and isotopic's (the study of the behaviour and configuration of electrons in atomic structures).

While this has led to magnificent discoveries, there remain large gaps in our understanding such as: what truly is light made of? what truly is radiation? why do certain atomic structures behave the way they do? Most importantly, we are yet to see a coherent unified theory that links structures at every level of matter in the Universe.

7.1.1

What we will investigate in this chapter

In Chapter 5 and 6, we introduced the first levels of matter in the Universe:

UCA standard model of universal elements

Level 1	Unita	Unita
Level 2	Super Sub Atomic	Quark, Neutrino, Cosmic
Level 3	Sub Atomic	Protons, Neutrons, Electrons
Level 4	Atomic	Hydro-Helio Atomic Matrix
Level 5	Molecules	Pairs, Tri's, Penta's, Polymers
Level 6	Complex molecules (life)	Fats, Sugars, Cells

In this chapter we will introduce two more levels of matter that are built from the super sub-atomic level of matter:

We will also seek to clarify important features and behavioral characteristics of these various particle groups that may assist us in understanding why particles at the atomic level do what they do.

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