99% nothing.

[SoX]

Just thought i'd run this past some of you,,coz it sounds a bit weird. Today i had a chat with a fellow physicist at my college, it went a litte something like dis:

An atom is summat like 99% (or whatver close to) space, the bit between the nucleus and electrons.
And since the nucleons are made up of quarks, and these dont "touch" each other, there must be space in the nucleus too.

So since an atom is now pretty damn close to 100% space then does that mean: "we are practically made up of entirely nothing?"

thats the bit that sounded weird.. i didnt like it .

[Cyborg Stan]

Yeeeeep.

Keep in mind though, that solidness as we think of it is simply just side effect of force.

[Coyote]

THE force?

Kewl.

[Darth Wong]

Just thought i'd run this past some of you,,coz it sounds a bit weird. Today i had a chat with a fellow physicist at my college, it went a litte something like dis:

An atom is summat like 99% (or whatver close to) space, the bit between the nucleus and electrons.
And since the nucleons are made up of quarks, and these dont "touch" each other, there must be space in the nucleus too.

So since an atom is now pretty damn close to 100% space then does that mean: "we are practically made up of entirely nothing?"

thats the bit that sounded weird.. i didnt like it .

We're mostly empty space and solidity is merely the result of electromagnetic field interactions. Why should that bother you?

[SoX]

solidity is merely the result of electromagnetic field interactions

oh, i knew that. that all forces boil down to,, erm 4 is it? (Weak/Strong Nuclear, Gravity and Elctromagnetic) and that nothing touches its just electromagnetic interaction. Its just that if we are 100% nothing, then what is nothing...thats just gettin weird. does nothing exist? (please dont answer that one, i know that we have a number for it i.e. 0).

[neoolong]

So that's why you can saw a woman in half.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

solidity is merely the result of electromagnetic field interactions

oh, i knew that. that all forces boil down to,, erm 4 is it? (Weak/Strong Nuclear, Gravity and Elctromagnetic) and that nothing touches its just electromagnetic interaction. Its just that if we are 100% nothing, then what is nothing...thats just gettin weird. does nothing exist? (please dont answer that one, i know that we have a number for it i.e. 0).

Well, if we are nothing, then we wouldn't have mass. It's just that we have mass despite our bodily compositions being 99% empty space. If that empty space was eliminated, we'd be far heavier. Just think of neuton stars, where one teaspoon of it's composition would have the mass of 3 Empire State Buildings.

[HemlockGrey]

I like the way Bill Nye the Science Guy explained it:

Think of it as a fan. The fanblades(or atoms) are going so fast, when we touch it, it seems solid.

[neoolong]

I like the way Bill Nye the Science Guy explained it:

Think of it as a fan. The fanblades(or atoms) are going so fast, when we touch it, it seems solid.

Great now we'll have a bunch of kids sticking their hands into fanblades thinking they'll be solid.

[SPOOFE]

Don't joke about it. That's how I lost my hand.

[SyntaxVorlon]

I like the way Bill Nye the Science Guy explained it:

Think of it as a fan. The fanblades(or atoms) are going so fast, when we touch it, it seems solid.

Are you sure he said 'touch', I think it would have been more logical, or legally advisable, to say, 'see.'

[Queeb Salaron]

So since an atom is now pretty damn close to 100% space then does that mean: "we are practically made up of entirely nothing?"

What's even better is this: Because our entire bodies are made up of mostly space, is it then theoretically possible to shove an extremely thin needle through, say, the middle of our chests and never have it interact with an atom in our body? Like, in reference to the Bill Nye analogy, sometimes you can stick your finger in and out of the whirring fanblades really quickly and not hit or get hit by one of the blades.

Ponder that one.

[Queeb Salaron]

I like the way Bill Nye the Science Guy explained it:

Think of it as a fan. The fanblades(or atoms) are going so fast, when we touch it, it seems solid.

Are you sure he said 'touch', I think it would have been more logical, or legally advisable, to say, 'see.'

Being the sadist that I am, I would have said "lick."

[Durandal]

Just thought i'd run this past some of you,,coz it sounds a bit weird. Today i had a chat with a fellow physicist at my college, it went a litte something like dis:

A fellow physicist? Unless you're a physicist (which I'm seriously doubting based on your posts), please refrain from giving the impression that you are.

An atom is summat like 99% (or whatver close to) space, the bit between the nucleus and electrons.
And since the nucleons are made up of quarks, and these dont "touch" each other, there must be space in the nucleus too.

Actually, we have no way of really confirming that there is empty space between quarks. However, considering that the strong nuclear force is, well, the strongest binding force in the universe (1E40 times stronger than gravity, and this force is constant within a certain, distinct radius), I'd say it's pretty likely that there isn't any space between quarks.

So since an atom is now pretty damn close to 100% space then does that mean: "we are practically made up of entirely nothing?"

Just about, yeah. The only reason you can touch something without it completely falling apart is by virtue of electromagnetic interaction.

oh, i knew that. that all forces boil down to,, erm 4 is it? (Weak/Strong Nuclear, Gravity and Elctromagnetic) and that nothing touches its just electromagnetic interaction. Its just that if we are 100% nothing, then what is nothing...thats just gettin weird. does nothing exist? (please dont answer that one, i know that we have a number for it i.e. 0).

We're obviously not 100% nothing. We're simply largely nothing. If you're so miffed at the prospect, consider that if we were packed as densely as we could be, we'd all collapse into our own singularities.

Oh, and that "nothing" is the quantum foam. There's more weird shit that goes on in that stuff.

What's even better is this: Because our entire bodies are made up of mostly space, is it then theoretically possible to shove an extremely thin needle through, say, the middle of our chests and never have it interact with an atom in our body? Like, in reference to the Bill Nye analogy, sometimes you can stick your finger in and out of the whirring fanblades really quickly and not hit or get hit by one of the blades.

They're called neutrinos.

[Sriad]

solidity is merely the result of electromagnetic field interactions

oh, i knew that. that all forces boil down to,, erm 4 is it? (Weak/Strong Nuclear, Gravity and Elctromagnetic) and that nothing touches its just electromagnetic interaction. Its just that if we are 100% nothing, then what is nothing...thats just gettin weird. does nothing exist? (please dont answer that one, i know that we have a number for it i.e. 0).

If I knew the answer to that one I'd drop out of school and go conquer Fermilab. This sort of thing is AFAIK what lots of quantum physicists are after, what are the most basic building blocks of everything, why things have mass, all that jazz. It all depends on how you define mass; from what (little) I understand of quantum physics we're mostly made out of probability.

The needle you're sticking through yourself would have to be impossibly small and/or fast; if it's made out of normal matter it will have an effect on the rest of your particles in the time that it's hanging around. You could probably have a needle that would leave no trace on your body, your cells would just heal around it when it left. Now that I think about it, speed would be a bad thing for this needle to have, it means that any particles it "bumped" into would bump into other particles that much harder.

[Sriad]

Just thought i'd run this past some of you,,coz it sounds a bit weird. Today i had a chat with a fellow physicist at my college, it went a litte something like dis:

A fellow physicist? Unless you're a physicist (which I'm seriously doubting based on your posts), please refrain from giving the impression that you are.
singularities.

...well maybe the physicist was actually a "Fellow"?

[Durandal]

If I knew the answer to that one I'd drop out of school and go conquer Fermilab.

And I'd be offering to carry your briefcase to Stockholm.

This sort of thing is AFAIK what lots of quantum physicists are after, what are the most basic building blocks of everything, why things have mass, all that jazz. It all depends on how you define mass; from what (little) I understand of quantum physics we're mostly made out of probability.

We're made out of subatomic particles whose interactions are guided by statistics and probability. Our mass comes from what is known as a Higgs field.

The needle you're sticking through yourself would have to be impossibly small and/or fast; if it's made out of normal matter it will have an effect on the rest of your particles in the time that it's hanging around. You could probably have a needle that would leave no trace on your body, your cells would just heal around it when it left. Now that I think about it, speed would be a bad thing for this needle to have, it means that any particles it "bumped" into would bump into other particles that much harder.

As I said before, they're called neutrinos. They have a mean free path of 6000 lightyears. In other words, they'll go 6000 lightyears, on average, without interacting with any other particle.

[His Divine Shadow]

We're mostly empty space and solidity is merely the result of electromagnetic field interactions. Why should that bother you?

Speaking of that, could this be a possible explanation for how the ST phase cloak might work?

[neoolong]

We're mostly empty space and solidity is merely the result of electromagnetic field interactions. Why should that bother you?

Speaking of that, could this be a possible explanation for how the ST phase cloak might work?

If it's a phase cloak and it shifts things out of phase, I don't think it's so much that stuff passes through matter, but that the phased thing is shifted to another plane wherefore the matter just isn't actually there to be interacted with. Through treknobabble of course.

Edit: Sneak Peek from Batman Beyond had something like that with a belt that let people pass through matter.

So did a book called Dreamfall.

[Cyborg Stan]

Come to think of it, the Pauli Exclusion Principle should also take some of the credit.

Speaking of that, could this be a possible explanation for how the ST phase cloak might work?

Short answer : No.

Let's put it this way - interaction works both ways. You have to somehow interact with particles in your own body, the floor, the air, and light. Somehow, they can breathe the air but can only talk with another phase cloaked person. (Considering all sound is atoms and molecules vibrating. If they can breath, they should be able to yell so someone can hear them.) They can see light but somehow don't make shadows. Blah blah blah.

[Cyborg Stan]

Now the phase cloak thing is giving me a mental itch. A clear example of the difference between explaining WHAT something does and HOW it does it.

In order for there to be enough air for them to breath at all but for them not to talk, there would be have to be air phase-cloaked, and somehow contained in such a way that they can't see the container. Or, somehow there's a phase-cloaked oxygen/nitrogen gas mix permeating throughout the entire universe.

Another stupid idea is that they got stuck in a holodeck malfunction. (AGAIN)

And my personal favorite, the rest of the crew got tired of them and could actually see them, but it wasn't worth the effort to respond back. The funeral wake also makes perfect sense, they were celebrating them going away and never coming back. Of course, this all had to come to an end when the two started doing trollish things like exploding phasers in the middle of groups of people.

[von Neufeld]

Actually, we have no way of really confirming that there is empty space between quarks. However, considering that the strong nuclear force is, well, the strongest binding force in the universe (1E40 times stronger than gravity, and this force is constant within a certain, distinct radius), I'd say it's pretty likely that there isn't any space between quarks.

You're forgetting the Uncertainty Principle and threating quarks as classical particles.

[Durandal]

Speaking of that, could this be a possible explanation for how the ST phase cloak might work?

That would imply nullifying electromagnetic interactions, so no.

You're forgetting the Uncertainty Principle and threating quarks as classical particles.

What, should I write out all the theoretical equations governing quark interactions? I'm trying to explain it in a simple manner.

[von Neufeld]

You're forgetting the Uncertainty Principle and threating quarks as classical particles.

What, should I write out all the theoretical equations governing quark interactions? I'm trying to explain it in a simple manner.

Nope, why should you when I didn't bother? I meant that your statement earlier about no space between quarks is incorrect and that you can't talk about space between objects when they are on scale that requires quantum field theory to describe them. There is no current quark-quark interaction theory that I know of that gives <r> = 0.

[Durandal]

The easiest way to describe it would be in terms of energy levels. Since quark potential energy is extremely high, the quarks are very "close" together.