How much atom is empty space

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E-mail the story If atoms are mostly empty space, why do objects look and feel solid? Your friend's email. Your email. I would like to subscribe to Science X Newsletter. You can safely stick your hand into the space between the blades and wiggle your fingers in the nothingness. But when that fan is turned on, it's a different story.

If you're silly enough to shove your hand into that "empty space," those blades will inevitably swing around and smack into it Technically, electrons are point sources, which means they have no volume. But they do have something called a wave function occupying a nice chunk of the atom. And because quantum mechanics likes to be weird and confusing, the volumeless electron is somehow simultaneously everywhere in that chunk of space.

The blades of the fan are akin to electrons zipping around the atom, occupying chunks of space with their wave functions. It's a painful reminder that what might seem like empty space can feel pretty solid. Since the meat of your atoms is nestled away in nuclei, when you "touch" someone or something, you aren't actually feeling their atoms. What you're feeling is the electromagnetic force of your electrons pushing away their electrons. On a very, very technical level, you're not actually sitting on that chair — you're hovering ever so slightly above it.

So to conclude: Your very important human body is really, kind of, in a way, just a misleading collection of empty spaces on an empty planet in an empty universe. But at least you have a big car. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options.

Get the Insider App. Click here to learn more. Additionally, the Higgs field can't be removed. Even if we ignore every kind of field and particle except electrons, protons and neutrons, we find that atoms are still not empty.

Atoms are filled with electrons. It's true that a large percentage of the atom's mass is concentrated in its tiny nucleus, but that does not imply that the rest of the atom is empty. Rather, it implies that the rest of the atom has relatively low density. The misconception of an empty atom is taught by incorrect elementary-level science books and is based on the false picture of electrons as balls.

In this view, the atom consists of electron balls whizzing around the atomic nucleus which is itself a ball. In this picture, the space between the electrons and the nucleus is therefore empty space. While this picture the Bohr model is simple to imagine, it was shown to be wrong almost a century ago. Electrons as well as all particles are partially particle-like and partially wave-like, depending on the situation.

When bound in atoms in an undisturbed state, electrons act like waves.