David777
Well-known Member
- Location
- Silicon Valley
The following is a short excerpt from a long document I've been working on for years, I'll share for members amusement and conversation.
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empty space within atoms
More familiar to many is the structural theory of atoms. If an apple were magnified to the size of the Earth, then the atoms in the apple would be approximately the size of the original apple. Within a single drop of water are about 4000 million million million atoms that is 4x10 to the 21st power. Note a million million is a trillion, 10 to the 12th power. Within each atom, the nucleus at the center of an atom is on the order of about 100,000 times smaller than the electron cloud surrounding an atom that defines its size.
In other words, vast empty spaces. Within each nucleus, the empty space is more complex with virtual photons active making a description beyond mathematical abstraction awkward. In neutron stars all that particle space has collapsed so matter is tightly compressed. Our entire planet Earth if compressed so would only be 305 meters in diameter that again shows how most of what we experience as solid, is mostly empty space.
spacetime vast emptiness
Every moment trillions of neutrinos are passing through our bodies without being affected by any matter within our bodies and then continue to pass completely through the planet Earth likewise. Two of the more important questions today for physicists and astronomers is what is dark energy and dark matter since most of our universe is apparently made from those two things yet we cannot as yet identify them except that they contribute to gravitational effects that points to such being a form of stuff aka energy/matter.
If we consider quantum mechanics, at Planck lengths, theory says space time is very much not empty but rather there are all manner of particles coming into and out of a foam-like quantum existence. Thus, empty space within our universe is actually not empty at all but rather stuff of energy fields. In fact, what science has found to be various quantum particles can all be changed into pure energy in meeting respective antiparticles, points toward an essence at smallest levels of structured energy not matter. The Higg’s boson field that recently has been enormous news as “the God particle” is what some of this empty space theory is about. A key concept loosely stated between energy waves and solid particles is that waves do not collide but rather combine.
Planck length
Part of why the above can be is because of how small things can be. To understand how small things can be, a visualization in Wikipedia of the Planck length:
The size of the Planck length can be visualized as follows: if a particle or dot about 0.1 mm in size (which is approximately the smallest the unaided human eye can see) were magnified in size to be as large as the observable [94 billion light year diameter] universe, then inside that universe-sized "dot", the Planck length would be roughly the size of an actual 0.1 mm dot. In other words, a 0.1 mm dot is halfway between the Planck length and the size of the observable universe on a logarithmic scale.
Per Einstein’s equation (E = mass times the speed of light squared), matter can be changed into energy and vice versa that at some minimal level likely near the Planck length means, it is the same basic energy field stuff combined into different structures. At this point of our human science, quantum theory considers all particles to be either dimensionless point sources or strings that physicists tend to consider, so for mathematical reasons limited by current understanding of a deeper likely structural reality, that could be complex combinations of fields. Other emerging theories are going down a path that there is no empty space but rather a complex of fields that at lowest essence are the same stuff. Solid matter, for instance neutrons, is actually structured energy fields.
vastness of empty space lacking solid matter
What this means is there is an astronomical potential for empty space within what we experience as solid matter. Within a given length of space with two passing quantities of solid matter, the smaller each piece of matter, the less chance they will collide with each other. So, when matter is as small as say a neutrino with extremely weak interactions, it much more easily fits through what we see as solid matter because that solid matter is mostly empty space itself.
Additionally, some particles that through theory have cross sectional areas like electrons, are actually thought to be energy waves concentrated structurally more about dimensionless points. If so, that provides a reason why neutrinos can pass through so much matter if such is only non-interacting fields that even if directly colliding, combine their structural fields at point locations and then likewise separate around each other, unaffected. Space as space-time is itself a profoundly mysterious phenomenon scientists have limited understanding beyond how gravity is an attractive effect on the whole showing a common facet of its nature.
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empty space within atoms
More familiar to many is the structural theory of atoms. If an apple were magnified to the size of the Earth, then the atoms in the apple would be approximately the size of the original apple. Within a single drop of water are about 4000 million million million atoms that is 4x10 to the 21st power. Note a million million is a trillion, 10 to the 12th power. Within each atom, the nucleus at the center of an atom is on the order of about 100,000 times smaller than the electron cloud surrounding an atom that defines its size.
In other words, vast empty spaces. Within each nucleus, the empty space is more complex with virtual photons active making a description beyond mathematical abstraction awkward. In neutron stars all that particle space has collapsed so matter is tightly compressed. Our entire planet Earth if compressed so would only be 305 meters in diameter that again shows how most of what we experience as solid, is mostly empty space.
spacetime vast emptiness
Every moment trillions of neutrinos are passing through our bodies without being affected by any matter within our bodies and then continue to pass completely through the planet Earth likewise. Two of the more important questions today for physicists and astronomers is what is dark energy and dark matter since most of our universe is apparently made from those two things yet we cannot as yet identify them except that they contribute to gravitational effects that points to such being a form of stuff aka energy/matter.
If we consider quantum mechanics, at Planck lengths, theory says space time is very much not empty but rather there are all manner of particles coming into and out of a foam-like quantum existence. Thus, empty space within our universe is actually not empty at all but rather stuff of energy fields. In fact, what science has found to be various quantum particles can all be changed into pure energy in meeting respective antiparticles, points toward an essence at smallest levels of structured energy not matter. The Higg’s boson field that recently has been enormous news as “the God particle” is what some of this empty space theory is about. A key concept loosely stated between energy waves and solid particles is that waves do not collide but rather combine.
Planck length
Part of why the above can be is because of how small things can be. To understand how small things can be, a visualization in Wikipedia of the Planck length:
The size of the Planck length can be visualized as follows: if a particle or dot about 0.1 mm in size (which is approximately the smallest the unaided human eye can see) were magnified in size to be as large as the observable [94 billion light year diameter] universe, then inside that universe-sized "dot", the Planck length would be roughly the size of an actual 0.1 mm dot. In other words, a 0.1 mm dot is halfway between the Planck length and the size of the observable universe on a logarithmic scale.
Per Einstein’s equation (E = mass times the speed of light squared), matter can be changed into energy and vice versa that at some minimal level likely near the Planck length means, it is the same basic energy field stuff combined into different structures. At this point of our human science, quantum theory considers all particles to be either dimensionless point sources or strings that physicists tend to consider, so for mathematical reasons limited by current understanding of a deeper likely structural reality, that could be complex combinations of fields. Other emerging theories are going down a path that there is no empty space but rather a complex of fields that at lowest essence are the same stuff. Solid matter, for instance neutrons, is actually structured energy fields.
vastness of empty space lacking solid matter
What this means is there is an astronomical potential for empty space within what we experience as solid matter. Within a given length of space with two passing quantities of solid matter, the smaller each piece of matter, the less chance they will collide with each other. So, when matter is as small as say a neutrino with extremely weak interactions, it much more easily fits through what we see as solid matter because that solid matter is mostly empty space itself.
Additionally, some particles that through theory have cross sectional areas like electrons, are actually thought to be energy waves concentrated structurally more about dimensionless points. If so, that provides a reason why neutrinos can pass through so much matter if such is only non-interacting fields that even if directly colliding, combine their structural fields at point locations and then likewise separate around each other, unaffected. Space as space-time is itself a profoundly mysterious phenomenon scientists have limited understanding beyond how gravity is an attractive effect on the whole showing a common facet of its nature.
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