By Paul Sen Series Producer, Science You Can't See: The Atom A
new BBC Four series examines humanity's quest to understand the
atom. Here, series producer Paul Sen explains why the
realisation that everything we see in the Universe is made of
atoms could be the most important discovery ever. An atom isn't
just tiny, it's over 99.9% empty space No-one ever expected the
atom to be as bizarre as it turned out to be. Since 1905 when a
young Albert Einstein demonstrated for the first time that atoms
must exist, they have consistently flummoxed scientists by their
weird, almost contradictory behaviour. Here's a quick flavour of
just how strange an atom is. And remember atoms aren't obscure
objects: everything in the world around us is made of atoms; we
are made of atoms. First of all, atoms are ridiculously small -
they're about one tenth of a millionth of a millimetre across.
That means that a human hair, one of the narrowest things
visible to the eye is around a million atoms across. Put another
way, there are mo