Rutherfords experiment with gold estimated the radius of a gold atom to be approximately 1x10^-9cm. Suppose the radius of the nucleus is the same as a basketball. Would the volume of the atom be bigger or smaller than that of a typical domed athletic stadium. Show a little math to support your answer.

Question

aaronq · Answer

what is the radius of a gold nucleus?
whats the radius of a basketball?
whats the radius of a stadium?

adamconner · Answer

Well that all the queston tells me. 

But from google: 
Basketball radius is about 4.4 in.
there is lots of stadiums all different sizes obviously
and the gold nucleus radius is 7.3 x10^-15

aaronq · Answer

7.3 x10^-15 are the units meters?

adamconner · Answer

yes in meters my bad

aaronq · Answer

so just take their ratios

nucleus/atom= 7.3 x10^-15 m/1x10^-11 m

basketball/stadium=0.11 m/find this

if the ratio of nucleus/atom is smaller than basketball/stadium, then the atom is bigger than the stadium, relative to the nucleus/basketball.

adamconner · Answer

so i got this: nucleus/atom=7.3x10^-4
and the basketball/stadium= 8.59x10^-4

adamconner · Answer

so now that means the nucleus/atom is smaller

aaronq · Answer

yeah, but not by much, i would say they're almost equal.

adamconner · Answer

alright thanks