My high school chemistry teacher said that there is no such thing as a “vacuum,” it’s just a difference in air pressure. But you always hear about the “vacuum” of space, or when something is “vacuum-sealed.” I am not scientifically inclined, so I don’t even know where to begin. Im also not sure if “physics” is the correct flair lol. I was wondering if it could be explained from either side of the argument.
In: 8
This is an issue of two different definitions.
What your teacher means when they say there’s no such thing as a a vacuum is “a thing that sucks things in”
What people mean by “the vacuum of space” is “a region with nothing in it, even air”
Air exerts a pressure. If you have a tube just sitting around, the air on the inside exerts the same pressure as the air on the outside, and nothing happens. If there’s a vacuum in the tube, and thus no air, than there’s nothing pushing away from the tube to counteract the air outside pushing towards the tube. Something near the tube will experience this imbalance, and it’ll look like it’s getting *sucked in* by the vacuum *in the tube*, but really it’s getting *pushed in* by air *outside the tube*. That’s what your teacher means by “there’s no such thing as a vacuum”
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