atomic model
rallain | October 21, 2009My friend Konrad showed me this awesome toy he made.
I know it doesn't make sense yet, so let me explain. Basically, you take this marble and roll it down the tray through the pegs. The pegs sort of randomize where the marble rolls through the hidden section. Inside the hidden section, it looks like this:
The object of this toy is to find the cross-sectional area of the rings. Konrad said he built this based off of a toy he was given in middle school. He wasn't told how to do it, just to do it. Maybe I shouldn't say anymore about that toy except that it is awesome. No instructions,…
rallain | September 4, 2009I love this story. It is a story of how ideas changed about the nature of the atom. These are the notes (and diagrams) I use when I teach the atomic nature of matter to non-science majors. The best thing about this story is that it is a great example of science. Science (or scientists) build a model. If new evidence comes along, the model gets changed. There are several other websites that describe all of this stuff, I will list a couple at the end of this post.
Typical textbook model of an atom
Look in an intro, non-science majors textbook and you will probably see a picture like this…