is there a truely solid object or does everything have some form of pourous no matter how miniscule

strings...but thats energy....matter is made of energy called strings

http://superstringtheory.com/

but if the universe started as a little ultra dense piece of matter all that energy was already there and for something to be made denser it cant be completely solid but in theory if you compressed it enough it must have a point of solidity

Being porous and being solid are not mutually exclusive conditions. Sponges are both solid and porous, and so are most textiles made of natural materials.

if u dont understand i mean when the universe was a little spec of matter all those "strings" were even denser but it would be impossible for something trully solid to get smaller or get bigger and still be solid

oh and by solid i dont mean its physical state such as solid liquid gas i mean something with no gaps in between so its truely one thing with no gaps

Stephen you have to understand that at quantum stage...at which strings are...definitions such as solid, liquid, gas...do not exist...simply because location of these strings is not defined. What I am saying is because location of these particles (energy strings) is always different, they are everything at once.

so these energy strings are like really small?

so these energy strings are like really small?

the smallest thing there is. smaller than muons...besons...leptons...

but is it possible that as techgnology advances we could find that these have smaller parts?

but is it possible that as techgnology advances we could find that these have smaller parts?

theoretically I would say this is impossible.

theoretically yes but science has proven many theoris wrong because of unforeseen surcumstances

is there a truely solid object or does everything have some form of pourous no matter how miniscule
the only thing i can think of is the singularity at the center of a massive black hole.

I think vacuum is solid. Or space itself, classical fields, quantum wave functions, etc. Because these things are defined everywhere.

but is it possible that as techgnology advances we could find that these have smaller parts?

It is very possible that we find structure to those particles. Remember that protons were considered fundamental, then protons were considered fundamental, all of which changed when we preformed experiments at higher energies.

As for the original question, I think I am pretty confused about it. What do you mean, ``solid''?

well i believe solid now is not the best term to use but i mean imagine a substance it could have lots of atoms or whatever but there are no gaps in it so for instance if you got a piece of plastic and compressed it so much that all of the atoms and so on are all touching with no gaps in between

nothing is solid, things only appear to be solid.

there always has to be gaps between things because everything must consist of something more, otherwise they consist of nothing (which they do anyway). things can't be made of anything, they can only appear to be made of things.

imagine a particle with no gaps. what would that particle be made of then? nothing. there has to be gaps between everything otherwise "nothing" would make sense. these words and letters would mean nothing without the gaps between them.

but is it possible that as techgnology advances we could find that these have smaller parts?

scientists will always find more and more parts. there is no end to it, just like there is no end to the planets and stars in the universe, even though scientists think there is an end. if you would zoom enough, you would find planets like ours inside atoms with intelligent beings like us. and if you would zoom out, you would find that our "universe" is just a particle in another "bigger" world.

I think vacuum is solid. Or space itself,

lol, vacuum/space is exactly what makes things "unsolid".

well i believe solid now is not the best term to use but i mean imagine a substance it could have lots of atoms or whatever but there are no gaps in it so for instance if you got a piece of plastic and compressed it so much that all of the atoms and so on are all touching with no gaps in between

What does it mean to have ``all of the atoms touching''?

'Solid' is an illusion. Space/time, force fields, blah blah blah.

'Solid' is an illusion. Space/time, force fields, blah blah blah.

solid is a property that does not go to quantum level and universal dimensions.

Aether - Akasha - Photon - call it what you will.

'Solid' is an illusion.

if nothing is solid, what is the world made of then? only words and thoughts... like forcefields and atoms?

oh and by solid i dont mean its physical state such as solid liquid gas i mean something with no gaps in between so its truely one thing with no gapsSo you're redefining one of the basic words in science? Why? Surely you're more articulate than that and can come up with a better term that expresses what you're thinking far more clearly.
well i believe solid now is not the best term to use but i mean imagine a substance it could have lots of atoms or whatever but there are no gaps in it so for instance if you got a piece of plastic and compressed it so much that all of the atoms and so on are all touching with no gaps in between"Atoms touching"??? Just how many chemistry and physics courses have you attended? That phrase is totally meaningless. Atoms are composed of electrons, protons and neutrons, which are separated by spaces that are enormous compared to the teeny-weeny spaces they physically occupy. I'm not going to bother looking this up to get the numbers perfect, but basically if you blow an atom up to the size of the earth, the electrons will be the size of golf balls. Yeah guys, maybe I'm off by a factor of a billion but my point is still valid. Atoms are mostly empty space and the particles that comprise them aren't very likely to bump into each other often enough to make a difference in their properties.

When atoms come close enough to each other to consider using the word "touch," what often happens is that their electrons start to be affected by the electrical charges of the protons in each other's nuclei, as well as the two subatomic forces. If one atom has only a couple of electrons in its outer orbit, they may defect to complete the nearly full outer shell of a nearby atom. In other cases the outermost electrons of both atoms will develop a complicated motion in which they all orbit both atoms. These are called ionic bonding and covalent bonding, respectively. The two atoms, considered as individual entities, then have an electrical relationship to each other that keeps them from drifting apart. And presto: this is how a molecule is formed! In some solids, the bonding phenomenon transcends pairs of atoms and each one is bonded to more than one of its neighbors. As a result all the atoms are components of a neat mathematical layout, and presto again, you've got a crystal.

What you're talking about is pushing atoms so close together that they collapse and their protons, neutrons and electrons really do start bumping into each other. This involves tremendous pressure and heat. We've gone beyond my knowledge of physics and I'll let somebody else take over. However, I suspect that what we're going to end up with now is either a black hole, or a nuclear reaction in which matter is converted into energy.'Solid' is an illusion. Space/time, force fields, blah blah blah.To paraphrase in scientific language, "solid" is a condition that has meaning at the molecular level but not at any lower level. Since most of us will spend our entire lives several layers of decomposition above the molecular level, the condition of solidity is perfectly real and meaningful to us.

What you're talking about is pushing atoms so close together that they collapse and their protons, neutrons and electrons really do start bumping into each other. This involves tremendous pressure and heat. We've gone beyond my knowledge of physics and I'll let somebody else take over.

The Pauli Exclusion principle kicks in before that. My quantum prof insisted that it is the exclusion principle, and not electrical repulsion, that accounts for the "solidity" of matter (i.e., you can sit on your chair rather than go right through it).

The Pauli Exclusion principle kicks in before that. My quantum prof insisted that it is the exclusion principle, and not electrical repulsion, that accounts for the "solidity" of matter (i.e., you can sit on your chair rather than go right through it).

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I thought that the exclusion principle wasn't significant until you get to white dwarf kind of density?

You are saying that atom is mostly empty space with a few electrons here and there and nucleons at the center. What about the electromagnetic field/virtual photons between them? The "empty space" between electrons and nucleons is full of virtual particles and I guess it is not "nothing".

??
I thought that the exclusion principle wasn't significant until you get to white dwarf kind of density?

Not sure what you mean by that... certainly, the Exclusion Principle is fundamental to the behavior of all bosons everywhere in the universe. Perhaps you mean that non-classical effects don't show up in the statistical mechanics of hydrogen until you get to very high densities? This could well be true, but it bears mentioning that the classical descriptions themselves implicitly rely on the Exclusion Principle (i.e., two neutrons that collide will interact in some way, rather than passing right through one another).

If I define liquid to mean something that's wishy-washy when no one's looking, is there something truly liquid?

You are saying that atom is mostly empty space with a few electrons here and there and nucleons at the center. What about the electromagnetic field/virtual photons between them? The "empty space" between electrons and nucleons is full of virtual particles and I guess it is not "nothing".But he's talking about bits of matter colliding with one another like two locomotives. I think the universe of discourse here concerns physical particles, not virtual ones. We talk about a block of interstellar space being a vacuum, meaning it is empty, even though we know energy is being transmitted through it. The original question is a little hard to understand because of semantics, not science, but I think we've established that he's asking about matter, not photons and force fields.

I understand, but without force fields the remaning things are nothing, because there will be nothing to push them apart. You can compress them infinitely (if the basic constitutes are just mathematical points or strings, they have zero volume), they will never "touch" each other. "Touching" means there is some interaction but without force fields there is no interaction.

Not sure what you mean by that... certainly, the Exclusion Principle is fundamental to the behavior of all bosons everywhere in the universe. Perhaps you mean that non-classical effects don't show up in the statistical mechanics of hydrogen until you get to very high densities? This could well be true, but it bears mentioning that the classical descriptions themselves implicitly rely on the Exclusion Principle (i.e., two neutrons that collide will interact in some way, rather than passing right through one another).

Do the atoms in a water molecule stay apart because of the exclusion principle, or because of the electromagnetic or weak force? Or are they different labels for the same thing?

The weak force is a short distance force. It only lives inside the neucleus.

is there a truely solid object or does everything have some form of pourous no matter how minisculeFrom our perspective, it seems that whatever have a size is made of numerous components, you ask no matter how miniscule, well at that level we have atoms, and if you mean "pourous" as "has space between the components" then everything is pourous to that level at least.

So let's examine the atom (whatever that is), it presumably has a core, and arguably it has space between the components of the core, there are also alot of space between the core and the electrons, since they are so small also in comparison, so there we have space too...

So to that level everything is still "pourous"...

So let's examine the quarks, I don't know if there is something that is made of only one quark, if not then the quarks has space between them, or it would only be one quark (or could something be so stuck together that it has no space between them?).

Now we come to theory, quarks is theoretically made of strings, so what are strings, well, to my knowledge it is vibrating and the vibrations describe the properties and so on of the string, and therefor of the object made by it.

The string could be divided I think, but I don't think it has space in itself, since a vibration is only a positive and a negative continous stimulation (so to say), we wouldn't say that sound has space in between it, not as we mean when we say that particles has space in between it, since sound is a continous motion (and beware it isn't the air and the molecules that is the vibration, as little as it is the water that is the wave).

The weak force is a short distance force. It only lives inside the neucleus.

Thanks for answering part of the question... :)

Do the atoms in a water molecule stay apart because of the exclusion principle, or because of the electromagnetic or weak force? Or are they different labels for the same thing?

I'm not sure I can say exactly why they stay apart, but the exclusion principle is crucial to the atoms bonding into a molecule in the first place. I.e., the shell structure of electrons in atoms is a direct consequence, so...

Thanks, quadraphonics, you put me on the right track.

More here: Pauli Repulsion in Ionic Molecules (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/molecule/paulirep.html#c1)

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I thought that the exclusion principle wasn't significant until you get to white dwarf kind of density?

degenerate matter can be found right here on earth. metals are naturally degenerate. its what makes them so strong.

Thanks, quadraphonics, you put me on the right track.

More here: Pauli Repulsion in Ionic Molecules (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/molecule/paulirep.html#c1)

Good stuff.