An atom is a mythical beast. No one has ever seen one. There are electron tunneling microscope pictures of things like tungsten atoms but the resolution is so poor that you may as well be looking at a bowl of cottage cheese. That is because in order to resolve something in visible light, the light wavelength must be appreciably smaller than the object under scrutiny. And atoms are just too small for that. Still, they are real. Countless experiments going back to Newton and beyond have demonstrated this beyond all doubt. I myself have taken known quantities of (radioactive) carbon-14 atoms in the form of C-14 carbon dioxide and used this as an atmosphere in which to grow plants. Amino acids from these plants are then radioactive and the exact locations of the C-14 atoms can be determined (using an analytical technique called electrophoresis). The resulting amino acids can be used by doctors as radioactive tracers in medical research. I still have elevated levels of C-14 in my body resulting from working with the stuff for several years. For this reason, centuries from now, if scientists try to carbon date my remains, they will find that I have not yet been born. So you see, even in death, I just don’t fit in. The pictures everyone has seen in high school of atoms looking like miniature solar systems with the electrons orbiting around the nucleus like miniature planets is utterly antiquated but still useful to chemists for determining physical properties. No self-respecting chemist would have a laboratory without a copy of the periodic table of elements hanging on the wall somewhere. The advent of quantum particle physics over the last hundred years has completely replaced the old “solar system” model with both mathematical and experimental evidence. One of the things the mathematics has shown is that the electron fields surrounding atomic nuclei (and the nucleus itself) are fractal structures. The atoms make molecules; the molecules make the universe. Everything from a grain of sand, up to galaxies, is made from them. It is not surprising, then, that we live in a fractal universe. Since no one has ever seen an atom, I am at liberty to depict one however I want. Nevertheless, this rendering is inaccurate in several respects based on known facts, including the following: 1) An atom is mostly empty space; if I depicted the electron shells at their proper distances you would not be able to see the nucleus (and where is the fun in that?); 2) Color at atomic scales is meaningless; visible light does not resolve on something that small; 3) This rendering is based VERY loosely on the string theory model and the depicted electron fields are highly idealized. I believe the term for all of this is artistic license. Still, I think it is pretty and I hope you like it. Created in Ultra fractal