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Welcome to our Physics lesson on Dimensions of Atomic Nucleus, this is the eighth lesson of our suite of physics lessons covering the topic of Atomic Nucleus and Its Structural Properties, you can find links to the other lessons within this tutorial and access additional physics learning resources below this lesson.
The nucleus of an atom has very small dimensions, much smaller compared to those of the atom itself. Experiments show that if the nucleus is thought as a sphere, its radius ranges from 10-14 m to 10-15 m. The empirical formula
where r0 is a constant (r0 = 1.2 × 10-15 m), is often used to calculate the radius r of nucleus for any element, and A is the number of nucleons contained in the nucleus of the given element. Thus, the formula that calculates the radius of atomic nuclei is
Calculate the radius of a hydrogen isotope nuclei known as deuterium (Z = 1) if it contains one neutron inside.
Deuterium atoms contain A = Z + N = 1 + 1 = 2 particles in their nuclei. Thus, the radius r of deuterium nucleus is
When compared to the dimensions of the atom ( ≈ 10-10 m), this value obtained for the radius of hydrogen nuclei is about 105 times smaller (about 100 000 times smaller) than the radius of atom itself. Thus, a nucleus in an atom is comparable to a rice grain (about 1 mm in thickness) placed at centre of a football field (about 100 m long).
You have reached the end of Physics lesson 20.1.8 Dimensions of Atomic Nucleus. There are 9 lessons in this physics tutorial covering Atomic Nucleus and Its Structural Properties, you can access all the lessons from this tutorial below.
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