What is the biggest atom? The smallest atom?

If by "biggest" and "smallest", you mean mass (which is a measure of how much matter is there), then the smallest is the hydrogen atom with one proton and one electron. Since electrons are about 2000 times less massive than protons (and neutrons), then the mass of an atom is mostly from the protons and neutrons. So the hydrogen atom "weighs" in as ONE. As you add more protons and neutrons, the mass increases. However, for very massive atoms, the force holding them together becomes unstable and they tend to break apart (a phenomenon known as radioactive decay). Very massive atoms such as nobelium and lawrencium have lifetimes of only a few seconds. On the other hand, if you are speaking of size, then atoms are all about the same size whether it's a hydrogen atom (the simplest and least massive with one proton and one electron) or a lead atom (with 82 protons, 82 electrons and 125 neutrons). Atoms are composed of a nucleus (where the positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons reside) surrounded by a cloud of orbiting negatively charged electrons. An atom is about 10-8 centimeters in size (meaning that 100 million of them would fit side-by-side within one centimeter). The tightly packed nucleus is 100,000 times smaller than the electron cloud. You might think that as you add more protons (and thus more positive charge), the electrons would be attracted more strongly to the inner nucleus and hence the atom would shrink. In reality the electrons tend to screen each other somewhat from the inner positive charge and so the size stays about the same.

Which element has the largest atoms?

What is the largest atom (in terms of volume not atomic mass or weight)? 9/21/99 Cesium (Cs), tucked in the lower left hand corner of the table, has the largest known atoms. The atomic radius of Cs is given variously as 273.1 pm [1], 265 pm [2], 265.5 pm [3] or 260 pm [4]. Rubidium also has large atoms, but its atomic radius is almost 30 pm less than cesium's. Vocabulary atomic radius effective nuclear charge

lanthanide contraction Why are cesium atoms so big? Cesium has a large pm valence shell and a relatively low effective nuclear charge. valence electron The valence shell (the outer 'peel' of the atom) is largest in atoms at the bottom of the periodic table. A low nuclear valence shell charge means that electrons can wander further, on average, from the nucleus. Nuclear charge increases going left to right across table rows, so the largest atoms should be found on the left edge of the table.

Does having such large atoms make any difference in cesium's properties? Yes. Cesium is one of the most reactive elements known, partially because its atoms are so large. Cesium's lone valence electron is so far away from the nucleus on average that it is very easily removed. The electron is taken from cesium by other substances in violent chemical reactions. Cesium bursts into flames on contact with oxygen in air. Water and even ice reacts more violently with cesium than any of the other common metals: 2 Cs(s) + 2 H2O( ) 2 CsOH(aq) + H2(g)

Why aren't francium atoms the biggest? The usual periodic trend for atomic size places larger atoms at the left of a row and towards the bottom of a column on the periodic table. It's no surprise that cesium is large. But shouldn't francium, in the next period with an even larger valence shell, be even larger? The answer is "possibly, but we just don't know yet." Francium isn't easy to study. It's the least stable of the first 103 elements; the most stable Fr isotope has a half-life of just 22 minutes [5]. The distance between atoms in metallic francium has not yet been measured. How can we predict the atomic radius of francium? We can try to predict unknown properties by extrapolating the properties of its 'brothers and sisters' in the same family. The simple extrapolation of the atomic radius trend for the alkali metals in the graph at left suggests that francium is definitely a contender for largest atom. However, as a period 7 element, francium is subject to a phenomena called the "lanthanide contraction". Elements with filled 4f subshells are smaller than might otherwise expected. The intervention of the lanthanides increases the effective nuclear charge, which offsets the size increase expected from filling the n=6 valence shell. As a consequence, sixth period transition metals are about the same size as their fifth period counterparts. The lanthanide contraction may make francium's atoms only slightly larger than those of cesium. In fact, they may even be slightly smaller.