Challoner J. The Atom: The Building Block of Everything

Ivy Press, 2018. — 195 p. — ISBN: 978-1-78240-556-6.From a distance, matter looks smooth and continuous. A solid object, such as a table, has definite edges and no apparent gaps in its structure; water spills from a cup as self-contained fluid streams and droplets; and the air we breathe, although invisible, feels like one gassy continuum. But at a scale far too small for us to truly comprehend, matter is bumpy and discontinuous; it is made up of empty space punctuated by countless tiny particles. This notion—that matter is made of extremely small particles—is called atomism. This book is a celebration of atomism, and it sets out some of the remarkable insights an atomic perspective has revealed about the world around us.A brief history of the concept “atom”
Structure of the atom
Atomic identities
Atoms together
Seeing and manipulating atoms
Atomic applications
The end of atomism?