Did you know everything around you-your phone, your pencil, even you-is made of something you can’t see? Atoms are the tiny building blocks of matter. Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space. Atoms join together with other atoms to make molecules, and those molecules make up medicine, food, clothing, and even the air we breathe.

Atoms are so tiny you can’t see them with your eyes or even with a regular microscope. It would take over 10 million hydrogen atoms to fit across the head of a pin. Imagine so many invisible building blocks making up everything that is visible. Who designed them? Not man, that’s for sure- even 2,000 years ago, man was only beginning to think about atoms.

The Essence of Elements: Atoms and Their Subatomic Secrets

An element is the purest form of matter. Gold, sodium and carbon are all elements. Each of these examples is made of only one kind of atom; gold has only gold atoms, sodium has only sodium atoms, etc. It’s what makes pure gold pure. Scientists know of over 100 known elements!

Not only do chemists know atoms exist, but they’ve also discovered atoms have even smaller particles called subatomic particles: protons, neutron, and electrons. Each of these subatomic particles plays an important role in how an atom bonds with another atom. Protons have a positive charge, neutron have a no charge (they are neutral), and electrons have a negative charge. Protons and neutrons are found in the nucleus at the center of an atom; electrons are spin around the nucleus in areas called shells, at speeds we can hardly imagine.

The Periodic Table: Unveiling the Ordered Patterns of Elements

Scientists have organized the elements by their physical properties into a rectangular table called the Periodic Table of the Elements.  It’s like the way many grocery stores group foods in certain areas to make shopping easier. For example, fresh fruits and vegetables are usually located on one side of the store, while frozen foods and dairy products are on the other so that you can put them in your cart after you have almost finished shopping.

The periodic table shows clear ways the elements follow an organized pattern.

1. Elements are organized by their atomic number, or the number of protons. This number increases as you move through the table.

2. Each element has an atomic mass, which typically equals the number of protons + the number of neutrons.

3. Each row in the periodic table follows a repeating pattern based on how electrons are arranged around the nucleus.

4. Metals are generally found on one side of the periodic table, while nonmetals are on the other.

5. Each column is also based on similar chemical properties.

The list of patterns goes on and on! The more we study the atom, its characteristics, and how each follows consistent patterns, the more we see remarkable order in these tiny building blocks. Their precise organization points to a Creator, who designed the invisible building blocks of everything we see. Chemistry is filled with these reminders of truth.

Hebrews 11:3. By faith we understand that the world has been created by the word of God so that what is seen has not been made out of things that are visible.