A single human hair is about as thick as

一個人的頭髮大約是

500,000 carbon atoms stacked over each other.

50萬個碳原子疊起來那麼厚

Look at your fist, it contains trillions and trillions of atoms.

看看你的拳頭，它包含著好幾兆個原子

If one atom in it were about as big as a marble, how big would your fist be?

如果一個原子的大小跟一顆彈珠一樣 那你的拳頭將會有多大呢？

Well… about the size of Earth. Hm… still hard to imagine?

呃......關於地球的大小 嗯......還是很難想像嗎？

Let’s try something different

讓我們嘗試一些不同的東西

Look at your little finger.

看著你的小拇指

Imagine that its tip is as big as the room you’re sitting in right now.

想像一下，它就跟你正坐在裡面的那個房間一樣大

Now fill the room with grains of rice.

而房間裡充滿著米粒

One rice corn represents one cell of your fingertip.

其中一粒米代表你小拇指的一個細胞

Now let’s zoom in on the rice corn.

現在讓我們放大那粒米

And now, one cell is as big as the room you’re in right now.

而現在，一個細胞就跟你正坐在裡面的那個房間一樣大

Let’s fill it with rice again. This is about the size of a protein.

我們再次的填滿飯粒，這次差不多是一個蛋白質的大小

And now, let us fill all the empty spaces between the rice corns

現在，讓我們以沙子塞滿

with fine grains of sand.

米粒之間的空隙

This is roughly how small atoms are.

原子大概就是這麼渺小

What is an atom made of?

原子是由什麼製成的？

Let us just pretend that atoms look like this for a minute

讓我們假裝一分鐘的時間原子​​看起來像這樣

to make it easier to understand.

以便更容易理解

An atom consists of three elementary particles:

原子包括三種基本粒子：

neutrons, protons and electrons.

中子，質子和電子

Protons and neutrons bind together and form the atom core,

質子和中子結合在一起，構成原子的核心

held together by the strong interaction,

受到強烈的相互作用而在一起

one of the four fundamental forces in the universe.

在宇宙裡四種基本力的其中一種

They are made from quarks and held together by gluons.

它們是由夸克製成並由膠子結合在一起

Nobody knows exactly how small quarks are.

沒有人確切的知道夸克有多小

We think they might literally be points, like in geometry.

他們可能是照字面上的意思翻吧，就像幾何

Try to imagine them as being zero-dimensional.

試著把他們當作是，零維

We suspect that quarks and electrons are

我們猜想，夸克和電子

the most fundamental components of matter in the universe.

是物質在宇宙中最根本的構件

Electrons orbit the atom core. They travel at a speed of about 2,200 km/s,

電子圍繞著原子核轉 他們在裡面行徑的速度約每秒2200公里

fast enough to get around the Earth in just over 18 seconds.

速度快到可以18秒繞完地球一圈

Like quarks, we think electrons are fundamental particles.

就像夸克，我們認為電子是一種基本粒子

99.999999999999%

99.999999999999％

of an atom’s volume is just empty space… Except that it isn’t.

的原子體積是空的...其餘的都不是原子

What we perceive as emptiness is actually a space filled by quantum fluctuations,

我們覺得的空虛，其實是用來填充量子波動的空間

fields that have potential energy and build and dissolve spontaneously.

潛在能量的領域、建造和自然的瓦解

These fluctuations have a fundamental impact on how charged particles interact.

這些波動的根本對帶電粒子如何相互作用有所影響

But that’s a topic for another video.

但是，這是其他影片的話題

How much space do the core and electrons actually fill?

有多少空間是原子核和電子真正佔去的？

If you were to subtract all the spaces between the atom cores

如果你去除所有原子核之間的空隙

from the Empire State Building, it would be about as big as a rice corn.

帝國大廈會變成米粒般的大小

All the atoms of humanity would fit in a teaspoon.

人體所有的原子大約是一茶匙

There are extreme objects where states like this actually exist.

有些極端物體類似的狀態是存在的

In a neutron star, atom cores are compacted so densely

在中子星，原子核被壓得很緊以至於很密集

that the mass of three Suns fits into an object only a few kilometers wide.

照這樣子的話，三個太陽連起來的長度只有幾公里

By the way, what do atoms look like?

對了，原子長什麼樣子？

Well, kind of like this.

好吧，有點像這個

Electrons are like a wave function and a particle at the same time.

電子同時就像一個波函數還有一個粒子

We can calculate where an electron might be at any given moment in time.

我們可以計算出，在任何時間內電子可能出現的地方

These clouds of probability, called orbitals,

這些概率雲，稱謂的軌道

are where electrons might be with a certainty of 95%.

有大約95％的確定性為電子的著落處

The probability of finding an electron approaches 0

找到一個電子的概率接近0

the further we get away from the atom core,

要進一步我們必須擺脫原子核

but it actually never is zero, which means that, in theory,

但它實際上不會永遠是0，這意味著，從理論上講，

the electron of an atom could be on the other side of the universe.

原子中的電子可能在宇宙的另一邊

Okay, wait a second.

好吧，等一下

These strange thingies make up all the matter in the universe.

這些奇怪而且一樣的東西組成所有在宇宙中的物質

For many dozens of known elements,

對於幾十種已知的元素

you don’t need many dozens of elementary particles, just three.

你並不需要幾十種粒子來表示，只需要三個

Take one proton and one electron, and you have hydrogen.

拿一個質子和一個電子，你有氫

Add a proton and a neutron, you have helium.

添加一個質子和一個中子，你有氦氣

Add a few more, you get carbon, a few more, fluorine,

再加一點，你得到碳，再多一些，就是氟

even more, gold, and so on.

加更多，金，以此類推

And every atom of an element is the same:

每一個元素的原子是相同的

all hydrogen atoms in the universe, for example, are the same;

例如:所有的氫原子在宇宙中是相同的;

the hydrogen in your body is exactly the same as the hydrogen in the Sun.

在你身體裡的氫同樣也是在太陽的氫

Do you feel confused right now? We certainly do!

你現在會覺得困惑嗎？ 我們肯定是的！

Nothing on this scale of the universe makes any sense in our world,

沒有任何東西在這種規模的宇宙裡講得通

and we’ve not even begun talking about quantum mechanics or the particle zoo,

而我們甚至還沒有開始談量子力學和粒子動物園

which are even stranger!

這更加奇怪！

Our model of atoms has changed a number of times since we first conceived it,

從我們最初的設想到現在，原子模型已經改變了許多次

and the current one will certainly not be the last.

而現在的模型肯定不會是最後一個

So let us support scientists and research

因此，讓我們支持的科學家和研究

and wait for the next wave of mindboggling new information

並等待下一波令人震驚的新消息

about this strange world that is the basis for our existence.

對於我們這個陌生的世界是這樣的

Subtitles by the Amara.org community