Comes From simple crystal structures
In 1958 Universal Exhibition was held in Brussels. For this occasion, he built a metal frame designed by André Waterkeyn that played at the basic structure of an iron crystal. This structure is called Atomium , and is located north of the city, close to the Heysel stadium.
The iron crystal has a lattice constant of 2.87 Å, while the height of the Atomium is 103 meters, which corresponds to a diagonal of the cube. The diagonal of the structure of iron is 4.97 å (4.97 × 10 -10 meters), so the Atomium represents the hub increased by 207 billion times.
As you can see, is a structure in the body-centered cubic (BCC), with a total of 9 atoms, one for each corner of the cube, and one in the center.
However, we must remember that every atom in a corner really belongs to all neighboring cubes, which are 8 blocks in each corner. That means that a single atom placed in a corner is shared by 8 neighboring blocks, so that the fraction of atoms belonging to a single cube is 1 / 8. With 8 corners which has a hub, the number of atoms which has the cube are 8.1 / 8 = 1 atom. Together with the atom's center, a total of 2 atoms are those given in the BCC unit structure.
The Atomium can visit inside for the small price of 9 euros, and you can get 4 of his "atoms" through quite steep stairs. The highest atom is accessed by lift, and contains a Resturante where you can see the city of Brussels.
But if you want some advice, do not enter. Inside (in 2009) there is nothing interesting to do (unless someone finds interesting political history of African countries).
