Basic Question about Atoms

[evolvedForm]

Does everything consist of atoms? If not, what is the space between atoms? For instance, if gas is a state where atoms are spread out, then what makes up the void? I'm reading Democritus and am getting hung up on this question, and I don't know if modern science has solved it. Would it be a vacuum or anti-matter? If so, what is that?

[DonkBluffer]

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what is the space between atoms?

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How about 'space'?

[holland3r]

Vacuum, certainly not anti-matter -- maybe some dark matter hiding in there, who knows.

[yukoncpa]

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If not, what is the space between atoms?
Would it be a vacuum or anti-matter? If so, what is that?


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Luminiferous aether /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[mjkidd]

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If not, what is the space between atoms?
Would it be a vacuum or anti-matter? If so, what is that?


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Luminiferous aether /images/graemlins/smile.gif

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Beat me to it. Bastard.

[evolvedForm]

If it is a vaccum, then the philosophical implications are perplexing. It would mean that a void, or nothingness, exists.

Also, is this something simply theorized, or is there empirical evidence for this vaccuum? (How do you get evidence for nothing, it cannot be seen)?

Sorry if this is obvious to a scientist - I know very little about science.

[PairTheBoard]

Under quantum theory these "particles", like atoms, are subject to complex wave functions so that you might think of them as really being sort of smeared out over the region. At least that's how I understand it.

Of course things like, "particles", "space", "dimensions", etc, are really just mathematical constructs acting as highly technical metaphors for what the true reality is. Very efficient and accurate metaphors for making calculations and predictions. But metaphors nevertheless.

PairTheBoard

[m_the0ry]

Not everything consists of atoms. In fact, if you were to make a pie chart showing how much of the total mass/energy in the universe is baryonic matter (atoms) the sliver cut out is miniscule.

The answer to what is between atoms is a little more complicated. In short, it is ideal vacuum. Space occupied by nothing.

It's hard to quantify the vacuum, but the best explaination I've heard analogizes the vacuum to the ground state of space. This has to do with zero point energy, the energy in a vacuum. Even though some energy exists in the vacuum, no lower energy state is attainable by any practical means.

[Metric]

One of my favorite physics quotes of all time:

"The world is made up of fields. Physically, they do not live on spacetime. They live, so to say, on one another. No more fields on spacetime, just fields on fields."

-- Carlo Rovelli, "Quantum Gravity"

[ChrisV]

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Does everything consist of atoms? If not, what is the space between atoms? For instance, if gas is a state where atoms are spread out, then what makes up the void? I'm reading Democritus and am getting hung up on this question, and I don't know if modern science has solved it. Would it be a vacuum or anti-matter? If so, what is that?

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Imagine two dots on a piece of paper and someone asking "What is between the two dots?". There are two correct answers: "The surface of the paper" and "Nothing". Likewise with your question, the answers "nothing" (or "empty space" or "a vacuum") and "the fabric of spacetime" are really the same answer. Spacetime is like a (4-dimensional) surface on which particles move. It doesn't exert any forces or otherwise make its presence felt, but according to relativity it can be warped by the force of gravity.

btw, it's not just gases that are empty space. The vast bulk of all matter, even solid crystals or metals, is empty space. For instance, steel has a density of around 8,000 kg/m^3. A neutron star has a density of around 100,000,000,000,000 kg/m^3. The difference in densities is due to empty space in the steel, so as you can imagine, there's a lot of it.

[DonkBluffer]

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Imagine two dots on a piece of paper and someone asking "What is between the two dots?". There are two correct answers: "The surface of the paper" and "Nothing".


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IMO, you might as well ask what the two dots are, in stead of what's between them. It's easy for us to believe that the dots (or atoms) are 'things', things that exist. We can grasp that with our minds. In between them, there are no 'things' that we can point to, nothing that we can say exists. But that doesn't mean that there is a void, a nothingness, between the atoms, does it? And that we can define atoms and point at them, doesn't explain what they are.

I think it's all part of the same whole. There's some kind of background of being, something that makes existence possible in the first place, in which everything else exists. Everything that 'exists', does not exist seperately from this whole, but is one with it. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

edit: I could've just used the quoted text. Most people see it like this: there are dots, and in between the dots there is nothing. But without the paper (the background) none of this could exist. What is in between the dots? Paper. What are the dots? Paper. The dots can't exist seperately from the paper.

[evolvedForm]

It may reconcile the paradox (that 'nothing' exists) if we posit a background (eg paper) which is the only real backdrop to 'existence.' Then, atoms and the void are mere illusions, while the backdrop is real. Does this make sense?

[Haunted Ghost]

Have you people seen and atom? Have you heard an atom? Have you felt an atom?

For supposedly "rational" people, you sure have a lot of blind faith.

[MusashiStyle]

I think it's not logically incorrect to say that in the space between atoms, or in vacuum, "nothing" exists.
You seem to be asking what are the properties of "nothing"?
pretty good question, I'm not sure exactly how to answer it.

[bloke3000]

exactly what are you saying here?

[ChrisV]

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Have you people seen and atom? Have you heard an atom? Have you felt an atom?

For supposedly "rational" people, you sure have a lot of blind faith.

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This is the SMP equivalent of dribbling on yourself.

[Haunted Ghost]

What do you think I'm saying?

[einbert]

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Have you people seen and atom? Have you heard an atom? Have you felt an atom?


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Yes.

[furyshade]

there are a lot of names for it, one of the more recent ones is is "Dark Energy", that is a non-zero force that exists in empty space which causes the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. this has also gone by thing like the Cosmological Constant, it is difficult to conceptualize because it is more proved by something needing to exist.

we know the universe is expanding, in the past decades we have learned it is expanding at an accelerating rate, we had no cause in known science for this because logically gravity would slow the expansion, therein a force accelerating the universe has to exist which we dub dark energy.

[thylacine]

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Does everything consist of atoms? If not, what is the space between atoms? For instance, if gas is a state where atoms are spread out, then what makes up the void? I'm reading Democritus and am getting hung up on this question, and I don't know if modern science has solved it. Would it be a vacuum or anti-matter? If so, what is that?

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Empty space is nothing like nothing.

Empty space is really something.

[yukoncpa]

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Empty space is nothing like nothing.

Empty space is really something.



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Yes, but like Metric said, empty space is made up of fields. What exactly is a field? What is a magnetic field or a gravitational field? What are these things made of? How and where do they exist? If I’m understanding things correctly, there is no explanation.

[ChrisV]

Fields are just an abstraction. Forces are actually carried by particles - photons in the case of electromagnetic forces, W and Z bosons in the case of the weak nuclear force, and gluons in the case of the strong nuclear force. According to relativity, gravity is different and is the warping of spacetime. Metric's quote is related to quantum theories of gravity, which are untested and unproven. Quantum gravity theory treats gravity as another quantum field with the force mediated by as yet undetected particles called gravitons. I don't know how this is supposed to merge with the other proven results of relativity, for example time dilation.

[yukoncpa]

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Fields are just an abstraction. Forces are actually carried by particles - photons in the case of electromagnetic forces, W and Z bosons in the case of the weak nuclear force, and gluons in the case of the strong nuclear force. According to relativity, gravity is different and is the warping of spacetime. Metric's quote is related to quantum theories of gravity, which are untested and unproven. Quantum gravity theory treats gravity as another quantum field with the force mediated by as yet undetected particles called gravitons. I don't know how this is supposed to merge with the other proven results of relativity, for example time dilation.



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Hi, thank you, I wasn't aware that forces of electromagnetism were understood. Show's my primitive understanding of physics. I guess I just don't understand how photons hold things up or attract and repel things or how boson's and gluons work.

[Metric]

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Fields are just an abstraction. Forces are actually carried by particles - photons in the case of electromagnetic forces, W and Z bosons in the case of the weak nuclear force, and gluons in the case of the strong nuclear force. According to relativity, gravity is different and is the warping of spacetime. Metric's quote is related to quantum theories of gravity, which are untested and unproven. Quantum gravity theory treats gravity as another quantum field with the force mediated by as yet undetected particles called gravitons. I don't know how this is supposed to merge with the other proven results of relativity, for example time dilation.

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Perhaps I don't need to be a nit here and confuse people any further, but "particles" are really just individual excitations of fields. This "particle interpretation" only works if spacetime has certain symmetries, such as those that exist if spacetime is flat -- if spacetime happens to be curved in an ugly way, you can lose the particle interpretation entirely, while the concept of a field is still valid.

As for what a field "really is" -- well, it's a mathematical structure that behaves like what we observe. There may or may not be something more fundamental, which will also just be a piece of mathematics that behaves like what we observe.

[arahant]

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[ QUOTE ]
Fields are just an abstraction. Forces are actually carried by particles - photons in the case of electromagnetic forces, W and Z bosons in the case of the weak nuclear force, and gluons in the case of the strong nuclear force. According to relativity, gravity is different and is the warping of spacetime. Metric's quote is related to quantum theories of gravity, which are untested and unproven. Quantum gravity theory treats gravity as another quantum field with the force mediated by as yet undetected particles called gravitons. I don't know how this is supposed to merge with the other proven results of relativity, for example time dilation.

[/ QUOTE ]
Perhaps I don't need to be a nit here and confuse people any further, but "particles" are really just individual excitations of fields. This "particle interpretation" only works if spacetime has certain symmetries, such as those that exist if spacetime is flat -- if spacetime happens to be curved in an ugly way, you can lose the particle interpretation entirely, while the concept of a field is still valid.

As for what a field "really is" -- well, it's a mathematical structure that behaves like what we observe. There may or may not be something more fundamental, which will also just be a piece of mathematics that behaves like what we observe.

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That sounds vaguely like bunk, but I'll save that for a nenw, and sober, thread.

My (possibly digressive) question is this:

How much energy is there in say, ME, versus the gas that surrounds me. I did a little googling earlier, and couldn't really figure it out. It looks like there is still a great deal of ambiguity around 'zero-point energy' for the vaccuum, etc...

This is inspired by a concept one often hears in Buddhism ('what am I' being one phrasing). I've always assumed that the density of "me" is significantly greater than the density of my surroundings, in some clear and absolute sense, and that there is therefore a reasonable definition of 'me'....Ok, I'm drunk (but up about 1k live), so I may just need to start a new thread tomorrow....but if you can make sense of this, help me out a bit /images/graemlins/wink.gif.

[Metric]

E(you + vacuum) - E(vacuum) = mass of you times c^2

The energy of the vacuum itself is not known -- only the energy difference associated with your existence is known, which is the right hand side of the equation.