h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Very cool indeed. But, unfortunately:

The earth isn't a sphere. It's only just slightly off spherical: fatter around the equater by a couple of kms. And the Earth orbits the sun in an ellipsoid. Finally, pyramidal atoms have been discovered. And there are some fairly unstable atoms out there, too.

Sorry. But it's a very read.

...and electrons are best described as 'clouds of charge' rather than spheres.

However, an interesting road of enquiry to go down - particularly the atom/solar system analogy. The real question here is whether the force maintaining the structure of the atom and the 'orbit' of its component parts is comparable to gravity. But then, mathematically describe the relationship of gravity to quantum forces and you've got yourself a nobel prize. Go for it!

- J

And, too, the atom/solar system relationship is a 'Lie to Childeren'; that is to say, we are given a foundation of lies so that, later, we can be taught that /actually/ it doesn't work /quite/ like that- but it's true enough for the moment. If the atom/solar system thing was true, the electrons would spiral into the nucleus within nanoseconds.