h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We were looking at diagrams of atoms in a solid, liquid and gas, in a science lesson, and I was just wondering whats in the space inbetween the atoms?

There is 'nothing' between the atoms unless you count the fabric of space/time itself.

t.

And there's an awful lot of nothing there as well...

I read a description of how big an atom actually is recently that was quite amazing...

Firstly, you can't tell exactly where an electron is at any one time, but if the nucleus of a hydrogen atom was the size of your fist, then the single electron would be floating around somewhere within a volume approximately the same size as the interior of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Sounds like you're reading the same book as me Whisky. Er, the one with the funny name I can't remember.

Quantum Theory cannot hurt you - Marcus Chown

A great way of failing to understand quantum physics

That's the fella!

Though this one's called The Never-ending Days of Being Dead.

"then the single electron would be floating around somewhere within a volume approximately the same size as the interior of St. Paul's Cathedral."

Wembley Stadium and a football is the analogy I usually use. And I'd take issue with 'floating around'. Electrons don't do that.

B

I did say ~failing~ to understand

DIdn't Rutherford use the analogy of a fly in a cathedral to show the relative sizes of a nucleaus and an atom?

But an electron is like a giant cloud occupying most of the space of the cathedral.

Traveller in Times looking around in the atom
"But there is plenty of decoration in here:

The nucleus cloud is generating several kinds of forces, all of them vibrating in several frequencies. There are electromagnetic forces and gravity both interacting with the electron and both interacting with surrounding atoms.

There are also some photons passing by when one hits the nucleus cloud it adds another vibration. If the vibration in a colour/polarity is beyond a threshold a photon is emitted. (Though I am not certain from where, it is the core that stores the vibration but some interaction with the electron cloud makes the photon escape.)

Sometimes very fast neutral particles pass the atomic space ignoring anything inside. "

Thank you for answering my question, but after reading the answer I've been wondering how can scientists know there is nothing between atoms if we can't even see them?

By carrying out odd experiments, like firing a stream of particles at a thin sheet of gold leaf and seeing where the particles end up... By the way they are deflected, you can work out exactly what the particles are hitting

Oh, okay that does sound odd! Do you know the names of the people who did the experiments so I can look them up?

Rutherford's original experiment was to fire a very thin beam of particles at a sheet of gold leaf. He found that 99.9% of the time the beam went straight through without hitting anything at all He concluded that the actual solid bits were only about 1 in 1000 of the gold.

This vibration within an atom why does it not fade ? If I pluck a guitar string or bang a drum the vibration disapates over time .
And I have to say the absorbing of photons and re-emiting in a particular spectrum giving things colour , is doing my head in as well .

I always liked Rutherford's comment on the results of his experiment:

"It was almost as incredible as if you fired a fifteen inch (artillery) shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back to hit you."

"If I pluck a guitar string or bang a drum the vibration disapates over time ."

That's largely because of air resistance and friction with the nut and the bridge - if there was no opposing force the string would naturally continue until something stopped it.

Inside an atom, there can't be any air resistance, because air wouldn't fit.

The "vibration" of the atom is exactly like the vibration of your guitar string.

Picture a cork floating in water. Push the cork down, and it bounds back up, then down a bit, then back up. The vibration is quickly damped. That's your guitar string.

The atom's vibration is more like the WATER moving up and down. The very fabric of what you're looking at is vibrating, rather than things made out of that fabric.

Absorbing and re-emitting in a particular spectrum giving things colour is pretty simple, and also admits of comparison to guitar strings.

Put simply, atoms are not like violins. They're like guitars. It's one of the fundamentally important observations in physics - energy is quantised.

On a violin, the notes are infinitely variable. On a guitar, they're quantised by the frets. Atoms have frets. Colours are notes. Some notes are too low to hear (infra red). Some notes are too high to hear (UV). Some you can hear (visible light).

<>

Physics ROCKS

I do so like this explanation Thank you!