Fact of the Day

There are certain facts that stick in your memory, and a trillion times that amount that do not. Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything is such a well-written book that I will practically forget everything he writes. If a book is too easy to read, then the content will be enjoyable but there is nothing to make it stick in your brain- “as is the effort, so is the reward”. There is definitely one fact that, thanks to Bill, will stay lodged in memory because he provided such a good analogy.

Basically, it’s all about the structure of atoms that had, at one point, thought to be a dense and solid object and shaped like a cube or a currant bun. In fact, an atom is now conceived to be mainly empty space. The neutrons which account for the majority of its mass, as well as the protons, are in a nucleus that constitute a millionth of a billionth of the atom, whilst the electrons spin round the outside. This fact, as stated so far, is one that I was probably taught when I was 15 at school and just like I forgot it then, I’d forget it now. I mean, what the hell does a ‘millionth of a billionth’ mean? However, a good image is all it takes…

Imagine that the atom was the size of a cathedral. If so, the nucleus would only be the size of a fly- but a fly that is many thousands of times heavier than the cathedral.