I've recently finished A Matter of Days by Hugh Ross as well as the "podclass," Principles of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (EEB122; Spring, 2009; Prof. Stephen C. Stearns) from Yale University (the podclass was obtained from iTunesU). I'm working on several comments for each as there are some noteworthy things that I want to point out.
In the mean time, I've started another podclass on chemistry, Principles of Chemical Science (MIT, 5.111, Fall 2008). In one of the opening lectures, the professor commented on the diameter of the atom (electrons, protons and neutrons) as well as the diameter of the atomic nucleus (only the protons and neutrons at the center of the atom). The diameter of the atomic nucleus is on the order of 10E-12 cm while the diameter of the entire atom is on the order of 10E-8 cm. So, the diameter of the atom is roughly four orders of magnitude larger than its nucleus.
What this means is, if we would think of an atom (i.e., the diameter of the electron cloud) as approximately the same diameter as that of a basketball then the atomic nucleus would be approximately the diameter of several human hairs. This is somewhat simplistic since I'm ignoring the moving electron cloud and the atomic forces. Still, I find it interesting that matter, as we currently understand it, is mostly made up of empty space.
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