What is the empty space in an atom?

[FreeThinker]

A very quick question. What is the "empty space"* within electron orbitals in an atom? Since most of the atom is "empty space", and our world is made of atoms, than most of the stuff around us is made up of this "empty space". What is it? Does it have any properties that we know of? Is there any research being done to study it?

[Martin]

A very quick question. What is the empty within electron orbitals in an atom? Since most of the atom is empty space, and our world is made of atoms, than most of the stuff around us is this "empty space". What is it?

 

an active research area

 

one way to get a little familiarity is to read a recent blog by Dan Oriti

where he talks about his new book

Approaches to Quantum Gravity: Towards a New Understanding of Space, Time, and Matter

 

http://christinedantas.blogspot.com/2006/11/one-year-of-cbi-invited-post-by_02.html

 

he has edited essays by some 20 authors in various research lines that explore the problem you mention (what is space, what is it fundamentally and why does matter bend it?)

 

QG is the quantum theory of space, because gravity is the geometry of space. matter is an aspect of space, like kinks or tangles, and it affects the geometry, which is what gravity is about. so a quantum theory of gravity is basically a theory of the fundamental degrees of freedom of space----a quantum spacetime dynamics. People are wrestling with this problem, that you state. It is hard and there are 4 or 5 different approaches being pursued.

 

Dan Oriti's book is about that. It will be published by Cambridge University Press, planned for early 2007.

 

In his blog entry he gives the table of contents and some discussion.

[FreeThinker]

Hi Martin,

 

I got a page not found error when trying to access the link. Can you repost?

[Martin]

Hi Martin,

 

I got a page not found error when trying to access the link. Can you repost?

 

thanks for telling me

http://christinedantas.blogspot.com/2006/11/one-year-of-cbi-invited-post-by_02.html'>http://christinedantas.blogspot.com/2006/11/one-year-of-cbi-invited-post-by_02.html

 

this works for me, but a more roundabout way is to go here

 

http://christinedantas.blogspot.com

 

(that is the main address for christine's blog)

and scroll down till you find Dan Oriti's contribution which i think was yesterday