Sizes and shapes of nuclei

Matter is nearly all nuclei if you count by weight, but in terms of volume nuclei don't amount to much. The radius of an individual neutron or proton is very close to 1 fm (1 fm=10^-15 m), so even a big lead nucleus with a mass number of 208 still has a diameter of only about 13 fm, which is ten thousand times smaller than the diameter of a typical atom. Contrary to the usual imagery of the nucleus as a small sphere, it turns out that many nuclei are somewhat elongated, like an American football, and a few have exotic asymmetric shapes like pears or kiwi fruits.

Discussion Questions

A	Suppose the entire universe was in a (very large) cereal box, and the nutri-tional labeling was supposed to tell a godlike consumer what percentage of the contents was nuclei. Roughly what would the percentage be like if the labeling was according to mass? What if it was by volume?