• Question: I am so obsessed with the Periodic Table that I can recite the ENTIRE THING in less than a minute! It's taken 5 years, but I made it! I was just considering this, and atomic structures, and wondered, is there a limit to the amount of shells an atom can have? Is it infinite? Or is there a point in which the electrons gain so much energy and/or gravity that it reacts with the gravity of the nucleus itself, and it just collapses? With artificial atom creation possible nowadays, it might be possible to find out. In a nutshell, my main question is: What is the maximum amount of shells an atom can have? Thankyou - darkmatter8 P.S. The Big Bang Theory is AWESOME!!!

    Asked by darkmatter8 to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 28 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      The bigger an atom is, the less stable it is – so there is a limit to the size that we could produce. I can;t think of what might limit the maximum theoretical size though, apart from the availability of enough matter.

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      Yeah, that’s to do with the nucleus though, isn’t it?
      As you pump more and more energy into an atom, the electrons get more and more energetic until they’re broken off the atom completely. When this happens, the atom is said to be ‘ionised’.

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