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Asked by anon-200937 to Rosemary, Oliver, Leigh, Jordan, Hannah, David on 1 Mar 2019.
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Oliver Gordon answered on 1 Mar 2019:
Now that’s an awesome question!
A “solid” is just a bunch of atoms really close to each other. A “liquid” is just a bunch of atoms somewhat far from each other. A “gas” is just a bunch of atoms very far from each other.
Then you think about what an atom actually “is”. There’s things in it that are much smaller (protons, neutrons at the centre, and electrons all the way at the edge.) If a proton was the size of a grain of sand, an electron would be a football pitch away. But we say that together they “make up” a single atom, even though there’s “space” inside them. So there’s spaces within spaces!
If we want to know if there is “space” between atoms, I would first have to ask you what the “edge” of the sky is. It isn’t a hard wall, after all.
But if you forced me to answer, I’d say “yes,” because these things are not single blobs that touch each other – they all interact through space.
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Leigh Kesler answered on 4 Mar 2019:
I agree with Oliver. I will add (from the perspective of a scientist studying radiation) that certain radiation like protons (which are just pieces of atoms) can travel through material – in a way, it is traveling THROUGH the spaces between the atoms (or in the spaces between the center or nucleus and the electrons). In my field, we think of atoms as being these big empty spaces with some protons, neutrons, and electrons floating around. Materials scientists, however, think of solids as stacks of atoms connected by bonds- and these bonds can be thought of as “spaces.” What’s interesting is that you can think of atoms in a LOT of different ways. They behave differently in different situations, so we have to use different approximations to describe how they work (this is why you sometimes see different descriptions/definitions). The “real” nature of atoms is very complicated, and we don’t completely understand it yet!
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