► How do atoms form? – Joshua, age 7, Shoreview, Minnesota

Richard Feynman, a famous theoretical physicist who won the Nobel Prize, said that if he could pass on only one piece of scientific information to future generations, it would be that all things are made of atoms.

Understanding how atoms form is a fundamental and important question, since they make up everything with mass.

The question of where atoms come from requires a lot of physics to be answered completely – and even then, physicists like me only have good guesses to explain how some atoms are formed.

What is an atom?

An atom consists of a heavy center, called the nucleus, made of particles called protons and neutrons. An atom has lighter particles called electrons that you can think of as orbiting around the nucleus.

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