Atom, smallest unit into which matter can be divided without the release of electrically charged particles. It also is the smallest unit of matter that has the characteristic properties of a chemical element. As such, the atom is the basic building block of chemistry.

Most of the atom is empty space. The rest consists of a positively charged nucleus of protons and neutrons surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The nucleus is small and dense compared with the electrons, which are the lightest charged particles in nature. Electrons are attracted to any positive charge by their electric force; in an atom, electric forces bind the electrons to the nucleus.

Because of the nature of quantum mechanics, no single image has been entirely satisfactory at visualizing the atom’s various characteristics, which thus forces physicists to use complementary pictures of the atom to explain different properties. In some respects, the electrons in an atom behave like particles orbiting the nucleus. In others, the electrons behave like waves frozen in position around the nucleus. Such wave patterns, called orbitals, describe the distribution of individual electrons. The behaviour of an atom is strongly influenced by these orbital properties, and its chemical properties are determined by orbital groupings known as shells.

This article opens with a broad overview of the fundamental properties of the atom and its constituent particles and forces. Following this overview is a historical survey of the most influential concepts about the atom that have been formulated through the centuries. For additional information pertaining to nuclear structure and elementary particles, see subatomic particles.

Atomic model

Most matter consists of an agglomeration of molecules, which can be separated relatively easily. Molecules, in turn, are composed of atoms joined by chemical bonds that are more difficult to break. Each individual atom consists of smaller particles—namely, electrons and nuclei. These particles are electrically charged, and the electric forces on the charge are responsible for holding the atom together. Attempts to separate these smaller constituent particles require ever-increasing amounts of energy and result in the creation of new subatomic particles, many of which are charged.

As noted in the introduction to this article, an atom consists largely of empty space. The nucleus is the positively charged centre of an atom and contains most of its mass. It is composed of protons, which have a positive charge, and neutrons, which have no charge. Protons, neutrons, and the electrons surrounding them are long-lived particles present in all ordinary, naturally occurring atoms. Other subatomic particles may be found in association with these three types of particles. They can be created only with the addition of enormous amounts of energy, however, and are very short-lived.

All atoms are roughly the same size, whether they have 3 or 90 electrons. Approximately 50 million atoms of solid matter lined up in a row would measure 1 cm (0.4 inch). A convenient unit of length for measuring atomic sizes is the angstrom (Å), defined as 10⁻¹⁰ metre. The radius of an atom measures 1–2 Å. Compared with the overall size of the atom, the nucleus is even more minute. It is in the same proportion to the atom as a marble is to a football field. In volume the nucleus takes up only 10⁻¹⁴ metres of the space in the atom—i.e., 1 part in 100,000. A convenient unit of length for measuring nuclear sizes is the femtometre (fm), which equals 10⁻¹⁵ metre. The diameter of a nucleus depends on the number of particles it contains and ranges from about 4 fm for a light nucleus such as carbon to 15 fm for a heavy nucleus such as lead. In spite of the small size of the nucleus, virtually all the mass of the atom is concentrated there. The protons are massive, positively charged particles, whereas the neutrons have no charge and are slightly more massive than the protons. The fact that nuclei can have anywhere from 1 to nearly 300 protons and neutrons accounts for their wide variation in mass. The lightest nucleus, that of hydrogen, is 1,836 times more massive than an electron, while heavy nuclei are nearly 500,000 times more massive.