If atoms are 99,9% emptiness, how can they keep things together ? Like, if my skin is 99,9% emptiness, why is it able to keep blood and organs in it ?
In: Chemistry
I mean, in a way, it isn’t really “emptiness” the universe is full of non valence quantum particles and anti particles: constantly coming into existence and annihilating each other. What we call protons and neutrons are really just coordinates in spacetime in which there are three more quarks than anti quarks. There could be 1,000,003 quarks and 1,000,000 anti quarks within those coordinates at a particular point in time, but after that point in time, 1,000,000 quarks and anti quarks will have annihilated eachother, and 1,000,000 new quarks and antiquarks will have appeared, and that goes on forever: quarks and anti quarks constantly appearing and disappearing, but the fact that there are 3 more quarks than anti quarks means that there is a net valence which describes the net properties that such coordinates will have at any particular point in time, which ultimately cause that set of coordinates to have particular properties that contrast it with the conditions of other coordinates. And you can describe those properties with statistical equations that take into account those facts.
So even though most space does not have a lot of valence in it, the fact that some space does means that it will interact with itself and other valence around it such that there are noticeable properties particular to some conditions of valence that are different from others, and we call those properties “forces”. So, in a way: matter itself, the matter that we are made of, exists because there is an imbalance in the amount of underlying quantum particles in the universe at any one time: in the space that makes up that matter, we can describe it as containing a slightly higher amount of particles than anti particles, and chemistry is ultimately based on the notion that that certain kinds of imbalance behaves in particular and predictable ways ways such that it forms larger particles which form atoms which form chemicals which form larger objects which form the universe, or, at least, a universe which is dynamic (like, there could be hypothetical universes out there with billions of times more particles and anti particles, but if they are truly equal in quantity, then they will all annihilate each other so fast and in such equilibrium that the universe would appear as if nothing is happening within it).
Latest Answers