blank space within atoms

[Hero999]

ericgibbs,
Like I said above it's all about the electrons and energy states. It's true that the density does make a difference, for example glass is less transparent than water but it's the way in which electrons are arranged around the atoms that really makes the difference.

The wavelength analogy still holds true though; gamma rays have such a sort wavelength that they pass through nearly everything (except the densest of materials) because the they are so small they can fit between the spaces between atoms.

 

[ericgibbs]

hero,
Transmission of light thru a solid compound or element has little to do with the arrangement of the electron shell around the nucleus of the atom.

Its the arrangement of the atoms within the solid compound/element molecular lattice that determines is ability to allow light thru.


Eric

 

[Hero999]

That too, but if you knew then why were you asking the question?

 

[ericgibbs]

hi hero,

Its one of those questions that is raised to create a forum debate on the subject.

If you look thru the posts, it suprising how people interpret different physical effects.

I just like to see what other peoples views are on certain subjects.
Often listening to other peoples views/concepts makes us re-examine our own ideas.

As you know we are taughts things as facts, only to find later on that its something totally opposite.

It wasn't asked in anyway to score 'brownie' points.

A classic example, is the 'conventional' current flow positive to negative and actual electron flow neg to pos.

Regards
Eric

 

[Hero999]

Good point.

I often feel that people believe everything scientist say too much. I don't want to start a religious debate and I'm no creationist but I don't think the necessarily universe started with the big bang; of course it's possible but it doesn't mean it's definitely true.

Also, scientists invent things all the time to make their other theories make sense; dark matter was only invented because the milky way will fly to pieces bacause it doesn't contain enough matter to hold it together.

I know I keep talking about this but what if we're wrong about global warming? What happens if we head into an ice age within the next 500 years. Shouldn't we be preparing for a colder climate, just in case we're doing the wrong thing?

 

[ericgibbs]

hero,

I don't know your age, but around 40 years ago, we had one or two 'cold' winters and the 'experts' told
us we are moving into another ice age!...and we must get prepared for it..

I think the guy who said 'the only thing thats constant in the universe, is change' got it right.

What about all the forecasts on whats going to happen when the earths magnetic field reverses.

The more we learn, makes us realise how little we do know.

Eric

 

[Hero999]

I'm not old enough to remember but I have come across the global cooling theory whilst researching about climate change and it's one of the things that made me question it even more.

I suppose whatever the change in climate, human activity will be to blame even if it's another ice age it's still our fault.

 

[luisgerman]

Depending on the material and the electron bands involved a coherent visible light colour is produced.

If visible light is too long to pass thru the spaces between the individual atoms, how does the light get out??

I think I have a rough idea, but I suspect Luis German, will give me the correct answer.

Is it because the laser light emission only takes place at the surface of the material?


Eric

Hi Eric, here´s a document about it; I kept it as simple as possible for the benefit of the feasible different forum user´s levels of aquaintance

Edit note: I´ve just noticed an awful typo in the docuemnt: (Heissemberg) please read Heisenberg

 

[Hero999]

And here it is in a free format.

 

[luisgerman]

Is the space between atoms really empty?

Eric

According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum is not empty, but teeming with virtual particles that constantly wink in and out of existence.

The vacuum of empty space is a restless place. According to quantum mechanics, particles pop in and out of

existence, and those "virtual" particles give the vacuum energy and can affect tiny objects. For example, two parallel metal plates will feel a minute force, called the Casimir effect, pulling them together. That's because
virtual photons with certain wavelengths cannot exist between them. The vacuum outside the plates thus has more energy, so it squeezes the plates together.

Existence of vacuum, then an entity called “no thing,” physics has achieved great insights into its nature, especially after the discovery and the subsequent development of quantum mechanics. A perfect vacuum—a space
devoid of any particles and at zero temperature— cannot be achieved, neither in theory nor in practice. A vacuum cannot exist in the cosmos due to the presence of the CMB radiation and to the quantum mechanical phenomenon of vacuum fluctuations.

A vacuum cannot exist inside an atom either, due to the presence of the force carriers of the various forces existing in nature. Even if such a vacuum could exist, the laws of quantum mechanics tell us that we would destroy it trying to observe it, and also even if we suppose that we can locate a small region of space vacant of particle/ antiparticle pairs and force carriers, a vacuum should still not be observable. There is a key quantum-mechanical concept introduced in using the word ‘observable’.

Moreover, it is known that a perfect vacuum cannot be created experimentally due to the third law of thermodynamics. However, applications of techniques for creating conditions of near perfect vacuums span several
disciplines, from microprocessing to food storage to metallurgy and plasma studies.

Based on their importance within laboratory testing environments and within the disciplines listed above, scientists will continue to search for powerful techniques to reach higher and higher levels of vacuum in the hope
of eventually achieving a perfect vacuum.

An “empty” space is never truly empty, physicists believe, even if every atom and particle in it has been removed.

This is because particles will continue to appear out of nowhere, then vanish.

In the new research, physicists report having measured this activity using a cloud of atoms that merge to effectively become one giant atom. This bizarre substance, called a Bose-Einstein condensate, was invented a
decade ago but has found little practical use since then.

The new findings, researchers say, mark the first time a Bose-Einstein condensate has been used to study anything besides its own properties. It was employed to investigate something perhaps even stranger: the so-called virtual particles that appear and disappear in the void.

Engineers must take virtual particles into account as they design ever-tinier machines and robots, a growing industry. On small scales, virtual particles create unpredictable forces that can throw off these devices.

In studying virtual particles, the researchers probed a phenomenon that seems to violate a physical law recognized more than two centuries ago: the law of conservation of energy.

The law says energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It’s also true of any object, because objects have mass, and mass is convertible to energy. Einstein showed this.

Virtual particles get around this law thanks to a subatomic phenomenon called the uncertainty principle.

Understanding the principle, as well as Bose-Einstein condensates, requires some explanation of the nature of subatomic particles.

Scientists consider subatomic particles as things with two seemingly contradictory natures: they are both particles and waves. This is because they act like one or the other depending on the experiment one does.

One can shoot them into a target like tiny bullets, in which case they act like particles.

But they also move like waves: for instance, they create interference patterns. These are patterns similar to those that appear when one drops two pebbles in a pond. Complex ripple patterns will appear where the two sets of circles, each expanding outward, overlap.

Physicists have found that subatomic particles’ wave nature makes it impossible for the particles to have both a precisely defined location and speed. This ultimately lets them briefly appear out of nowhere.

The effect is due to certain oddities of particle-waves.

So not only does it have an imprecisely defined location, it also has an imprecisely defined speed. In fact, more precisely you define its location, the less precisely you define its speed—because you’re adding more waves. The
more precisely you define its speed, the less precisely you define its location—because you’re subtracting waves and increasing the spread.

The idea that there’s no such thing as empty space stems from this finding that a particle can’t have both an exact speed and location. A point of “empty” space is mathematically identical to a weightless particle with a
speed of zero and a perfectly defined location, that being the point itself. This isn’t allowed.

Therefore, physicists postulate that empty space is actually full of subatomic particles that flash in and out of existence.

 

[ericgibbs]

Many Thanks Luis,

Have you done any work on photons and prisms?

Understood some experiments have 'shown' that photons can travel faster than the speed of light through a prism, 'in the presence of microwaves'.

Regards
Eric

 

[luisgerman]

And here it is in a free format.

That´s great Hero999.

Thanks a million (for your time and work on it)

Kind Regards:

 

[luisgerman]

Many Thanks Luis,

Have you done any work on photons and prisms?

Eric

Indeed I´v not worked directly on it, but I am definitely aware of such an interesting topic

Later I´ll post something about it once I´d assembled some information from several sensible sources

Kind Regards Eric:

 

[dknguyen]

Many Thanks Luis,

Have you done any work on photons and prisms?

Understood some experiments have 'shown' that photons can travel faster than the speed of light through a prism, 'in the presence of microwaves'.

Regards
Eric

My prof was working on stuff like this. He said they found out unfortunately that although the light travels faster than light, it carries no data with it, so information can't travel faster than light.

 

[tom3000]

i just wanna say that i've read quite a few things about QM and i have to say that it has gotta be the biggest BS ever invented. Not only it is STILL only a theory, but it simply goes compeletely against common sense.
IF electrons randomly pop in and out of neucleus'es(lol) orbit then how can that account for electron bonding with other atoms ? if that was true then chances of having the simplest compounds form would be 1 in 10 x exponent 100000000000 and more zeros behind it) the orbiting theory seems much more logical here

p.s. you all failed to realize that it's very easy to see thru atoms (the light ones at least) .....Water, gas - transparent. metals - solid

 

[dknguyen]

lol. TOm has got us there! (Except for gas, since those are very few particles. Although, transparent materials do distort light so you can't say entirely that we can see through them, just that some light manages to pass through to the other side).

Common sense has also failed many-a-time. Take a ruler, put it on the ground. World is flat! duh. Common sense also changes regarding how much you know about topics. Like if someone asked you what the difference between an NPN and PNP transistor, you might say well it's sooo obvious!

QM may be really strange and may just still be a theory. But I'm pretty sure they used it to compensate for relativistic effects in the GPS satellites. So there is at least some merit to it. I guess it's like similar to how accountants trust that engineers know what they are doing when their calculators and computers were designed, in the same way that engineers trust that doctors and medical-types know what they are doing when they give us pills. We don't have the time to try and completely understand what they are doing, we just trust that they do and we believe them.

 

[tom3000]

Common sense has also failed many-a-time. Take a ruler, put it on the ground. World is flat!

to measure the world, you need a ruler of the size of a world (world is not flat, it curves) lol

we just trust that they do and we believe them.

i trust nobody, cept my own 2 eyes

 

[dknguyen]

i trust nobody, cept my own 2 eyes

Then do you live in a dream world?

**broken link removed**

EDIT: LMAO, it took me forever to nice that none of the wheels are actually spinning. I thought only 4 wheels were spinning whicih caused the other wheels to also look like they were spinning.

 

[Pommie]

Can some knowledgeable person explain "spooky action at a distance".

As I understand it, a photon that is split in 2 can have 2 possible states but it's/there state is undecided until we look at one of them. How do we know that they are in an undecided state if we don't look? And, when we do look isn't it just like a pair of trousers, if we see a left leg then the other one is right, right? Also, what is half a photon?

Mike.
P.S. dknguyen, your link is broke.

 

[dknguyen]

http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/rotsnakee.html