if atoms are made of energy why dont cars run on thin air?

Question

How small is a atom any way?

Answer 1

You could say everything is made of energy because mass and energy are equivalent, but that doesn't mean the energy is accessible. You'd need a nuclear reactor to make the conversion.

As for the size of an atom--it depends on which atom. The smallest atom is hydrogen, with a radius of 25 picometers--that's 2.5 * 10^-13 or 0.00000000000025 meters. The largest atom with a radius listed on Wikipedia is americium, with a radius of 175 picometers, 7 times that of hydrogen.

Answer 2

Atoms consist of particles and energy. The trick is to release the energy. An application for cars using the release of energy from the hydrogen atom is a fuel cell.

"Atom size comparisons:
Various analogies have been used to demonstrate the minuteness of the atom:
* A human hair is about 1 million carbon atoms wide.
* An HIV virus is the width of 800 carbon atoms and contains about 100 million atoms total. An E. coli bacterium contains perhaps 100 billion atoms, and a typical human cell roughly 100 trillion atoms.
* A speck of dust might contain 3x1012 (3 trillion) atoms.
* The number of atoms in 12 grams of charcoal (about 6 x 1023) is more than 1,400,000 times the age of the universe in seconds."

Information is available from Wikipedia, the free, online encyclopedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

'cause getting that energy out of those atoms is tough. In fact, cars do run on thin air; air is an important part of the combustion cycle in gasoline engines. Without the oxygen in the air, gasoline engines wouldn't work.

But, I assume your question is about E=mc^2. Researchers are spending billions and billions on fusion research (google ITER), but the prospect is far in the future. I'd love to have a car powered by a "Mr. Fusion", like in the first "Back to the Future" movie, but I'm not holding my breath...