Question

Most of the space is empty is an atom

Answer 1

Answer:

Atoms are not mostly empty space because there is no such thing as purely empty space. Rather, space is filled with a wide variety of particles and fields. ... 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.

Explanation:

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Answer 2

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The view that an atom mostly consist of empty space stems from the old times when Bohr's atomic model (as a miniature planetary system in which electrons surround the nucleus) was the best picture of what an atom is like.

But there are no electron particles moving around an atom. One cannot view the electrons as little balls moving inside a molecule and somehow avoiding falling into a nucleus. Such a configuration would be unstable. The nuclei would attract little charged balls until they fall into them.

But it is very well understood why atoms are stable - the ground state is a delocalized stationary state of the electrons in an atom, a state living indefinitely (unless the nucleus decays). In terms of quantum field theory, the space is filled by the electron field. The resulting electron density can be calculated by quantum mechanics. Indeed, this is one of the outputs chemists are interested in when they use quantum chemistry packages like GAMESS.

Electrons behaving as particles (in the sense of being localized at approximately one place) only exist in situations where one may consider the field theory in the limit of geometric optics (cf. photons as particles of light), so that one can speak meaningfully of their paths. See, e.g.,

Maloff, I.G. and Epstein, D.W., Theory of Electron Gun, Proc. Inst. Radio Eng. 22 (2006), 1386-1411.

which presents a phenomenological view,

Jagannathan, R. and Simon, R. and Sudarshan, N., Quantum theory of magnetic electron lenses based on the Dirac equation, Phys. Lett. A 134 (1989), 457-464.

which derives geometrical electron optics from the Dirac equation, or the book

P.W. Hawkes and E. Kasper, Principles of Electron Optics, Vol. 2: Applied Geometrical Optics, Elsevier, 1989.

which contains engineering details for electron beams.

Geometric optics is an essentially macroscopic view not applicable inside atoms or small molecules. To measure the position of a single electron, you need to make it reach a localized detector such as a Geiger counter, thereby localizing it. But it is impossible to make a measurement of an electron bound in a molecule. What one can measure there is only the charge distribution.

There is no empty space around a nucleus, as in Bohr's superseded model. The electrons make up a tiny proportion of the mass of an atom, while the nucleus makes up the rest. The nucleus makes up a tiny proportion of the space occupied by an atom, while the electrons make up the rest.

According to quantum electrodynamics, the space is filled by an electron field around the nucleus which neutralizes its charge and fills the space defining the atom size. What is displayed by a field ion microscope is the boundary of this field. But this boundary is not perfectly defined but a bit fuzzy, more like the surface of a piece of fur or of a cloud.The electrons are therefore rather like a very low-density glue-like viscous fluid surrounding the nuclei and making up the spatial extent of the atom, transparent for neutrons but not for other electrons. Chemists draw the shape of these fluid clouds (more precisely, the electron density) as orbitals. Electrons show up as particles only under particular circumstances; e.g., in detectors such as Geiger counters.

The picture of an atom being mostly empty stems from the childhood of atomic structure analysis, where most of the atom's extension was found to be transparent for alpha rays, and the early models explained that by pointlike nuclei and electrons.

Similarly the picture of a proton or neutron being essentially empty apart from three quarks embedded in it arises because deep inelastic scattering shows that protons are essentially transparent for very energetic electrons, except when the latter meet an almost pointlike quark.

But both pictures are quite limited: We don't think glass doesn't occupy space because it is transparent for light, or that only the bones of our bodies occupy space because the remainder is transparent for X-rays. So why should we think of the electronic fluid surrounding nuclei not to occupy space simply because it is transparent to alpha rays, or of the meson and gluon fluid in which the quarks are embedded not to occupy space simply because it is transparent to fast leptons?

Glass is hard because it is occupied by a matter field that resists other matter (though not photons). Atoms are even harder because it is occupied by a matter field that resists other matter (though not alpha rays). Protons and neutrons are even harder because they are occupied by a matter field that resists other matter (though not fast leptons).

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