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#11
03-02-2007, 09:13 AM
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Re: Basic Question about Atoms
[ QUOTE ]
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". [/ QUOTE ] 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. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] 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. 
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#12
03-02-2007, 03:48 PM
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Re: Basic Question about Atoms
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?
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#13
03-02-2007, 06:48 PM
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Re: Basic Question about Atoms
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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#14
03-02-2007, 07:46 PM
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Re: Basic Question about Atoms
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.
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#16
03-02-2007, 08:37 PM
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Re: Basic Question about Atoms
[ QUOTE ]
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. [/ QUOTE ] This is the SMP equivalent of dribbling on yourself.
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#17
03-02-2007, 09:13 PM
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Re: Basic Question about Atoms
What do you think I'm saying?
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#19
03-02-2007, 10:15 PM
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Re: Basic Question about Atoms
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.
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#20
03-03-2007, 03:41 AM
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Re: Basic Question about Atoms
[ QUOTE ]
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? [/ QUOTE ] Empty space is nothing like nothing. Empty space is really something.
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