• Question: About how many atoms are there on earth?

    Asked by danjerous to David, Helen, Ian, rhysphillips, Sarah on 23 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: David Corne

      David Corne answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      See here: http://education.jlab.org/qa/mathatom_05.html – roughly speaking, a “1” followed by 50 “0”s. It’s steadily increasing, I think, because in the core of a nuclear (fission) reactor, as well as in naturally occuring radioactive elements, big atoms break up into smaller ones. But this doesn’t happen enough to make much of a dent on the overall number! I seem to remember the estimate for the entire observable universe is a “1” with about 80 “0”s following.

    • Photo: Rhys Phillips

      Rhys Phillips answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Lots

    • Photo: Ian van der Linde

      Ian van der Linde answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      > 1 ∧ ≤∞

    • Photo: Helen Fletcher

      Helen Fletcher answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      As David says, but in terms of different *types* of atoms, there actually aren’t that many! There are only 118 elements (that we know of), and then the isotopes (different chemical forms) of their atoms.

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