neilmac Jan 30, 2016:

Not really my field I was always rubbish at physics and chemistry... :)

P Forgas Jan 30, 2016:

corteza atómoca es un sinónimo de nube de electrones
pienso que electron cloud es la traducción correcta

matt robinson (asker) Jan 30, 2016:

Hi Charles, yup, I know. I have never seen any term for this area (And I have a degree in Physics) I don't like shells. I might use electron cloud. I don't like it, but I think it will have to do.

Charles Davis Jan 30, 2016:

@Matt Yes, you would have to say "shells", but I don't think that's the way to go. Modern English-language school textbooks just don't seem to teach a word for the whole region around the nucleus, they just teach the word "shells", which are generally called capas in Spanish.

Subjects are taught differently in different countries to a remarkable degree: I see this constantly at home, since my wife teaches in a Spanish state school and my sons went to a French school (and I went to a British school, though many things in teaching have changed since then, of course). For example, you would have thought Maths was the same everywhere, but Maths teaching in France and Spain is really very different.

Anyway, my younger son tells me that in Physique he was taught that the region around the nucleus is called the nuage électronique, and I think "electron cloud" would be what you would call this nowadays if you wanted to give it a name in a Physics textbook.

matt robinson (asker) Jan 30, 2016:

Hi Neil, the problem here is that they are not referring to the outer shell, but the area where all the shells are