Gross sensory input

I read once that if a human cell were as large as a baseball it would appear opaque and feel like a ball of snot. I was wondering what an atom would look and feel like if were the size of a baseball. Pointless question, but any idea?

Originally posted by patauro
I read once that if a human cell were as large as a baseball it would appear opaque and feel like a ball of snot. I was wondering what an atom would look and feel like if were the size of a baseball. Pointless question, but any idea?

It would feel like a negatively charged weird shaped object that repulses your hand when it gets close, kinda like touching an object, but less abrupt...it would get harder and harder to push further probably. Inside this negative shied would be a hard clump of spheres that is highly positively charged.

Not that the question really makes sense.

Electrons move at roughly (not quite but approaching) the speed of light. So, if the atom were the size of a baseball, I'd say that the electrons (which presumably would have increased in mass proportionally) would pack enough punch that it would "feel" very painful indeed.

Originally posted by patauro
I read once that if a human cell were as large as a baseball it would appear opaque and feel like a ball of snot. I was wondering what an atom would look and feel like if were the size of a baseball. Pointless question, but any idea?

More like if you were shrunk down to a size where the atom was perceived as the size of a baseball but what you would SEE if you could see it, would be a lot of nothing since beneath the electron layer there is a LOT of nothing till you get down to the nucleus which is a very compact formation deep down inside. If you could see the electrons, you would probably see a glowing cloud-like fuzzy object on the outside, the size of your baseball but if you could see under that you would find a lot of nothing. Of course if you could 'see' electroweak, strong forces and such you would see a bunch of radially centered lines coming out of the center and whipping around to each electron because the nucleus would be connected with fields of various kinds. The inner nucleus would have a different 'color', where the force there is the Strong force holding the neutrons and protons and such together, probably like a tiny vision of cotton candy with lumps inside, but the size of the whole affair would have to be a heck of a lot bigger than a baseball to see that kind of detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom

(caption of graphic to upper right)

An illustration of the helium atom, depicting the nucleus (pink) and the electron cloud distribution (black). The nucleus (upper right) in helium-4 is in reality spherically symmetric and closely resembles the electron cloud, although for more complicated nuclei this is not always the case.

same image, different caption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_nucleus

A figurative depiction of the helium-4 atom. In the nucleus, the two protons are shown in red and neutrons blue. This depiction shows the particles as separate, whereas in an actual helium atom, the protons are superimposed in space and most likely found at the very center of the nucleus, and the same is true of the two neutrons. Thus all four particles are most likely found in exactly the same space. Classical images of separate particles thus fail to model known charge distributions in very small nuclei