As I explained in Chapter 1, when scientists can’t see something directly, they propose a ‘model’ of what it might be like, and then they test that model. A scientific model is a way of thinking about how things might be. So a model of the atom is a kind of mental picture of what the inside of an atom might be like. A scientific model can seem like a flight of fancy, but it is not just a flight of fancy. Scientists don’t stop at proposing a model: they then go on to test it. They say, ‘If this model that I am imagining were true, we would expect to see such-and-such in the real world.’ They
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