I Feel the Empty Space Inside of Me.

Hello Humans! In my Gen-Chem class that I tutor for, the students were learning about the make-up of an atom. For those of you non-scientists out there, there is the nucleus, which holds the majority of the mass and is really small and compact. There are two sub-atomic particles that make up the nucleus: Protons and Neutrons. Protons are positively charged, and Neutrons are neutral, or have no charge. The nucleus is held together by this incredibly strong force called, wait for the most amazingly creative name for a force ever, "The Nuclear Binding Force." Wow. Thank you Chemists for making remembering scientific vocabulary millions of times easier! This force has to be incredibly strong, because it has to hold together the Protons, which like to repel each other, because like charges repel. The Neutrons are kind of a "buffer' to make the nucleus hold together better.

Then come the electrons. These tiny particles are negatively charged, and fly all around the nucleus, in really no pattern. This is because they are both wave-like and particle-like. They are held onto by the attraction force to the protons, because opposite charges attract. However, Electrons are spread very far apart because of the repulsion forces between each other. This is why Electrons make up the majority of the volume. Their mass is so small, that they are hardly taken into consideration when calculating the mass of an atom.

Atoms are, in my book, the most fascinating thing in the universe. They have been out-of-this-world to me since 7th grade, when I learned to draw the "lie" version of them. They seemed to be in their own little world. But in actuality, these little atoms are us. They are everything around us. They are the air we can't see, the cute doggie we pet, the book we read, the plants we eat, and the people we love. I would really love to do some actual research on these sub-atomic particles and their rolls in the universe.

Back to the Gen-Chem class. The Professor was explaining the atom, and then said that we are pretty much all empty space. This is because Electrons are so far away from the nucleus, relatively speaking. If we were to make the nucleus to the size of a tennis ball, the Electrons would be over 2,000 meters, or 2 kilometers away. There is so much empty space in-between the two! So, theoretically, we should be able to walk through walls, if the wall is made up of mostly empty space, and we are made up of mostly empty space, right? WRONG. Remember how the electrons repel each other? Well, they REALLY don't like to be next to each other. This repelling force is so strong that it makes it so that we can't walk through walls. It's so strong, that even one atom's election can't pass through another atom's electron field or orbital, unless they're bonding together.

But still, we are made out of mostly empty space, and by mostley I mean about 99.99% And that to me, is pretty cool to think about all on it's own. Stay wild, flower child.