What's in the gap between molecules?

[Miss Chybil]

Is this a stupid question? I'm not a scientist. I was sitting in chemistry class tonight looking at the illustrations of water molecules, and I know the illustrations leave big gaps just for illustrative purposes, but I'm wondering, even if the molecules were squished up together, there would still have to be something in between them, right? So what is it?

[C_U_L8R]

1. that's where you find god

or goo

depending on how you transpose the letters

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. lol. my answer is "infinity"

your's is more accurate though. :)

[Speck Tater]

2. Empty space. It's that simple.

For that matter, within the atoms themselves is mostly empty space as well. 99.999999% of everything is just empty space. Electrostatic forces keep the atoms from ever actually touching each other.

[On the Road]

6. Although, of Course,

According to quantum theory, particles do not exist in one definite space but are spread over a large probability wave. So the space between molecules is not exactly empty, but is space in which there is a lower probability of particles being present.

Also, according to Dirac IIRC, empty space is constantly generating matched pairs of particles which usually encounter each other and self-destruct in a fraction of a second. So the vacuum is not quite empty space from that point of view, either.

[The Straight Story]

3. Empty space now, condos and strip malls soon :) (nt)

[nashville_brook]

32. love it!

that's what i was thinking too, but i really like this zero-point foam.

[applegrove]

4. Smaller straws and smaller Styrofoam balls?

[salib]

5. Phenomenological question

So many interpretations.

Remember, we are not talking about "things" in the sense that we in the "macro scale" world see "things." So, in many ways, the question of what is "in between" is "the wrong question."

Even "illustrations" are quite silly really. Most of what is taught is at best a good working view, a visualization and cognitive aide, nothing more.

However, instead of being frustrated and disappointed by that answer. Be excited. There is so much more yet to understand, characterize, realize.

[mindwalker_i]

7. Gap between electrons is the same question

So theoretically all particles are point-particles, meaning they don't have any dimensions. String theory has other ideas, but the particles are then just really small instead of infinitesimal. Regardless, most everything is empty space. Fields run through this, such as electromagnetic, gravitational, strong, and weak nuclear, but this doesn't fill space in the sense that nothing else can occupy that space.

An interesting aspect of this is the question about what happens when an unstoppable object meets an immobile object. The unstoppable object would have infinite kinetic energy (energy of motion, proportional to mass and speed squared). The immobile object would have to be the same - infinite mass and not really going anywhere. If mass is empty space except with infinitesimal point particles with their associated fields, then as the unstoppable object moves into the space occupied by the immobile object, you end up with very high potential energies as particles that don't want to move up potential gradients of fields (think of unstoppable electrons colliding) are forced to do so. Since the unstoppable object has infinite energy, it has some to spare for the potential energy but the two objects should pass through each other.

Another possibility is that particles are themselves tight warps in spacetime. General relativity implies that mass warps space, and if particles are points, then they would warp space a lot. That would mean that there is nothing at all except warped space - no "particles" of anything other than empty, warped, space. A good topic for a political discussion board :)

-mwalker

[Miss Chybil]

10. I guess this is really above my head. What's a point particle

and how could something be nothing (i.e. no dimensions) and how could nothing be something (i.e. empty warped space)? Is there really such a thing as nothing? My kids and I used to love to watch the movie "The Never-Ending Story" in which the "big nothing" was taking over everything and I've always wondered how nothing could do anything. Of course, I know it was just a movie but still, it makes you wonder... I don't get it.

[Ready4Change]

15. So, you're saying I'm warped?

That would explain a lot! :think:

[bananas]

9. Foam.

Seriously - quantum foam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam

[Miss Chybil]

12. Holy crap.

What have I gotten myself into? :crazy: Thanks!

[Occulus]

21. Or.... a metron lattice.

I really like Heim theory (or Heim-Droscher, or whatever the name of it is at this point). It just seems.... elegant, somehow.

http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=4385&st=0

[longship]

11. Quantum foam

At that scale one has to consider quantum mechanics as that's getting to the point where QM starts to make a difference.

I'll try to put it simply.

Because of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle:




The momentum of a particle whose position is confined to any sufficiently small area of space is indeterminate. Likewise, at any sufficiently small time frame, the energy of space is likewise indeterminate.

This has given rise to the result that empty space is not in any way empty. Particles of matter come into existence and are destroyed on their own and without any causal connection to any worldly event. This makes the space below the quantum limit a very nervous, jumpy place. It's called quantum foam.

As long as this creation/annihilation remains within the limits of the uncertainty principle it does not violate the conservation of matter principle since anything within that limit, by definition, cannot be measured.

Google: Heisenberg, Uncertainty Principle, Quantum foam, etc.

[Miss Chybil]

16. So, when things are really small, time is small, too?

I guess it would be, considering you can just keep dividing it up, right? I wonder what the purpose is for all this creation/annihilation. Is it just to make space - to keep everything from crashing in on itself? And what if it did crash in on itself? Then what? Nothing? Would there be something in that nothing? This stuff is crazy - and a MAJOR diversion from my homework!

[longship]

17. No. Time is the same.

But beyond a lower limit, time makes no sense, since the universe is not in any way measurable below that limit. Causality breaks down. Below the Planck limit there is no before or after. Events happen without cause, without effect, without any way to measure them.

That's just the way things are. So stay the fuck away from that Planck limit. ;-)

By the way, the Planck limit is expressed in the value "h-bar" which equals 6.626068 x 10^34 m^2 kg/s, or in other words,

0.0000000000000000000000000000000006626068 m^2 kg/s.

That's a very small number. It's the same number in the Heisenberg equations (small case h, with a slash through it--called h-bar).

on edit: BTW, these quantum effects are not individually measurable, however, their accumulated effects are measurable using physical consequences of the effects. Some quantum experiments are pretty damned peculiar. But the effects are some of the most precisely measured in all of science. If QM doesn't work, your computer wouldn't work.

[Miss Chybil]

23. I think the only way I could wrap my brain around this would be to magnify

it and slow it all down.

I don't know why this stuff fascinates me so much. Math is my weak point, but when it comes to questions of time and space I can't look away. I really want to understand it, or at least, understand the theories. Do you think everything that happenes in big space is the same as what happens in small space?

I heard something on NPR the other day, just bits and pieces, but they were talking about string theory and how time and space could behave totally different somewhere else than it does here. I can't imagine time in anything other than a linear fashion. I wish I could.

Thanks for your help!

[Ready4Change]

28. Think of time like movie frames.

We typically view a movie at 30 frames a second. That is our velocity through time. Hit our time machines brakes and we're only looking at a single, unmoving, frame. Hit reverse, and we view the movie in reverse.

The real mind bender, for me, is multi-dimensional time. Picture time as a rail road. Each moment in time is a stop on the rail line. The future is East, the past is west. Now, hop off the train and run North. Where in "time" are you?

Waaaa! Can't (yet) wrap my brainstem around that one.

[Miss Chybil]

29. But, if time is in a frame, what's the frame made out of?

:crazy:

[Ready4Change]

31. There is no frame.

Time is a dimension, just like left/right, up/down, forward/backwards. Dimensions are directions. They are the distances between things. Between the 8 ball and the cue ball on a pool table, or between an airplane and the ground, or from the earth to the moon. Can you say the concept of East is made out of something, like cheese? No. But you can say that cheese is 50 feet away to the East. Just because dimensions aren't made of stuff doesn't mean they aren't very, very real.

When considering time as a dimension, it is the distance between, say, this split second and a split second 10 minutes ago. Like the cheese is 50 feet from here, those two split seconds are 10 minutes away from each other. Again, the time isn't made of stuff, but it is very real. Otherwise those two split seconds would happen simultaneously, not 10 minutes apart.

[Miss Chybil]

33. Yes, I understand that. I just thought you were trying to put it in a

"frame" and was curious what you were putting it "into."

[dweller]

13. Play-dough ...

:)

dp

[TlalocW]

14. My mom's zesty banana pudding

Mmmm-mmm!

TlalocW

[mainegreen]

22. *snort*

:spray: :spank:

[vicman]

18. I don't know...

but I'm pretty sure that's where I left my car keys last night.

[ashling]

19. Silly Putty

or play dough
:bounce:

[Sinti]

20. Initially I thought this was a "Zen" kind of question, but quantum foam

has got to be the right answer. It's too cool a concept not to be. The question for me now becomes, foam consists of bubbles, what's inside the bubbles? ;)

[Ready4Change]

25. I'm a little vague on this. Here's my go.

My understanding is that, as one examines very, very small objects, their very existence starts becoming theoretical. This is around a size called a (sp?) planck? Super small.

As you start probing for things even smaller, their existence really becomes a matter of probability. Such particles are constantly popping in and out of existence. At some, hard to pinpoint, scale, the existence of particles becomes noisy, totally random. That is quantum foam. Point particles popping in and out of existence randomly and for miniscule amounts of time.

Call it fizzy math?

[NNadir]

27. Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

We know exactly where they are.

[Miss Chybil]

30. And, maybe Jimmy Hoffa, too? LOL! nt

[htuttle]

24. Slack

Lots and lots of precious Slack.

[Ready4Change]

26. Ah slack.

We could all use a little slack, now and then.

[eppur_se_muova]

34. Call it vacuum. There's nothing smaller than molecules between the ...

molecules, because molecules are the smallest (stable) things there are under Earthlike conditions.

(Strictly speaking, there's a tiny amount of electron density, because it fades very rapidly as you get farther from a nucleus, but doesn't go to zero even at infinite distance. Atoms/molecules have a 'soft', ill-defined border, not a hard shell.)