The Smallest Things of All

To understand the world around us

And know the cosmos with less doubt

To comprehend that there is something

Instead of nothingness throughout

If we're to make sense of it all

Ask the "why" that matters most

We should turn our focus inward

To the smallest things that we can know

For centuries great thinkers pondered

How this world could be comprised

Is there an underlying constant

To the world before our eyes

Ancient greeks proposed a particle

So infinitely small

And they called these constructs atoms

The smallest things of all

From the structure of the atom

All the elements are known

And from elements come molecules

As chemistry has shown

First a nucleus sits densely

In the center of a sphere

And its core is protons bound to neutrons

The atom's mass is mainly here

About the nucleus buzz particles

That are vastly smaller still

Electrons with their minus charge

In their orbitals they spin at large