How are atoms arranged in pure metals?

1 Answer
Feb 17, 2017

Uniformly.............

Explanation:

The standard picture of metals is as:

#"positive ions in a sea of electrons"#

No doubt you have heard this before. While the electrons are free to move thru the metallic lattice, the metal ions are arranged as close-packed spheres. And there are a few ways to (geometrically) do this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-packing_of_equal_spheres