I know things are made of molecules but what keeps molecules together? What’s between them?
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There’s some good answers here touching on probability fields and such, but since you are talking about *molecules* I’ll add,
Atoms are identified by their number of protons, which have a positive charge. This charge wants to be balanced, so it picks up electrons, which are negative to balance out.
The electrons spinning around a nucleus of an atom form a sort of shell- like a cloud of flies. They can create layers like this, and have a number of electrons/flies per layer. The outer shell electrons are called variance electrons, and really like to reach certain numbers, and which point the shell is full.
So when two atoms get near each other, those variance electrons sometimes hop into another atom’s shell- and if they don’t leave the first atom’s shell, those atoms now have a combo shell. The electron is attracted to both atoms. This attraction keeps the atoms together even though the nuclei don’t want to get too near each other.
The number of electrons in that outer shell gives you an idea of how reactive a substance will be. Some are just waiting for their shells to be complete and if you bring these together, they tend to combine easily. Some have just the right number of variance electrons and just won’t combine with anything. ( the noble gases are like this).
There’s nothing in between molecules, but there’s also a swarm of electron flies, zipping between clumps of proton poo, constantly trying to find their fly cloud balance.
Example: the simplest molecule is H2. It is made of two hydrogens. Hydrogen has one proton and one electron. But electrons like the number 2. So H combines with H so there’s 2 electrons in the shell around 2 separate protons. Helium has two fused protons and two electrons. It’s happy as is mostly, so stays that way. Just He.
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