# Curious question about chemistry
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 1, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502 "2009-01-01T20:27:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Zygomide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zygomide)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/1 "2009-01-01T20:27:21Z")
I’ve been wondering something lately. I’m sure we are all familiar with the electron cloud model of an atom. [http://members.tripod.com/craigjm/Atom2-2.jpg](http://members.tripod.com/craigjm/Atom2-2.jpg)
The thing that was bothering me was, what is in the space between all the parts? 😕 Is it a vacuum, or some sort of even smaller particle like what is being looked for at CERN?
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/2 "2009-01-01T22:56:04Z")
I have no idea, but I have to note that I’ve had a similar problem when trying to figure out what subatomic particles are made of. Are they just energy packets, or are they substance? If they’re substance, what substance? They obviously can’t be made of any of the elements we’re familiar with, since those are made up of atoms, which are made up of these particles. So what are they?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/3 "2009-01-02T00:02:32Z")
Your link is bad. [Here’s the right one.](http://members.tripod.com/craigjm/Atom2-2.jpg)
Think of it as a vacuum.
**jayjay** : You can’t really visualize what a subatomic particle “looks like”. The best thing to do is just to consider them “subatomic particles”, whatever that is. They have properties (like mass, charge, spin) and they behave in certain ways. That’s it.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/4 "2009-01-02T00:05:23Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Your link is bad. [Here’s the right one.](http://members.tripod.com/craigjm/Atom2-2.jpg)
>
> Think of it as a vacuum.
>
> **jayjay** : You can’t really visualize what a subatomic particle “looks like”. The best thing to do is just to consider them “subatomic particles”, whatever that is. They have properties (like mass, charge, spin) and they behave in certain ways. That’s it.
Your link isn’t working either. Tripod is apparently not allowing remote links.
I realize that the concept of subatomic particles isn’t really translatable into any kind of macro visualization. That doesn’t stop my brain from trying to wrap itself around the subject. Believe me, if my brain actually did what I told it to do, I’d be living a whole different life…
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/5 "2009-01-02T00:10:48Z")
> [@jayjay](#):
>
> I realize that the concept of subatomic particles isn’t really translatable into any kind of macro visualization. That doesn’t stop my brain from trying to wrap itself around the subject. Believe me, if my brain actually did what I told it to do, I’d be living a whole different life…
OK. When you study physics you do that a lot-- at first. And then you just sort of start getting comfortable with the math, not worrying so much about what things “look like”. The quantum world is not very intuitive, given that our intuition is gained from the macro world.
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### Author:  [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/6 "2009-01-02T00:24:43Z")
I can’t figure out what space you are talking about.
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### Author:  [@Zygomide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zygomide)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/7 "2009-01-02T02:11:55Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#):
>
> I can’t figure out what space you are talking about.
The area between electrons and other electrons, and between electrons and the nucleus.
Also, **jayjay** , research string theory if you want some semblance of closure on the subject.
Edit: The links are working for me, so I dunno what the problem is. Hmm.
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### Author:  [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/8 "2009-01-02T02:16:42Z")
As far as I know there is no space between any of those things. The electron clouds overlap with each other. In the case of the S orbitals, they overlap with the nucleus as well. Where a node exists, it is infinitely small.
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### Author:  [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/9 "2009-01-02T02:45:54Z")
Tripod doesn’t allow hot-linking - you’ll need to copy the URL and paste it into your browser.
As for electrons, I think WarmNPrickly has it, more or less. The probability of finding an electron in a given location is never quite zero. Where it’s close to zero, I suppose you could call it a vacuum, but the function is continuous.
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### Author:  [@Zygomide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zygomide)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/10 "2009-01-02T02:53:09Z")
**WarmnPrickly** -
There are a finite number of electrons, and the number needed to fill up the volume of the entire electron cloud is vastly greater than the number of electrons per atom. So where there isn’t an electron -even if only temporarily- it would be a vacuum. I don’t think the clouds actually exist, they are a representation of the probability of the existence of an electron there. So even though the cloud may be continuous, the actual space-filling matter isn’t.
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### Author:  [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/11 "2009-01-02T03:11:13Z")
The location of an electron in the sense that you are thinking is meaningless. The “clouds” are wavefunctions that represent the location of the electrons. Any discussion of an electrons location beyond the wavefunction is pointless.
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### Author:  [@Zygomide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zygomide)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/12 "2009-01-02T03:14:57Z")
Fair enough, I guess it all depends on how you look at it. I only have a basic high-school understanding of the atom. Seeing as I am _in_ high school. So, pardon ignorance on my part.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/13 "2009-01-02T03:29:38Z")
What \*is \*today’s basic high school understanding? I took high school chemistry in 1973 and they didn’t teach probability clouds in my class, at least not that I remember. But then again, they didn’t teach relativity in physics, either, and I’m sure they teach that in high school now. I didn’t get these concepts until I studied quantum physics as a sophomore in college.
A difficult concept for high schoolers is the concept of empty space. In between particles is space. Which you can think of as vacuum, although “vacuum” is usually used to describe a whole big honkin’ chunk of empty space, not just the little bitty space in between subatomic particles.
BTW I don’t know much about the whole subatomic particle zoo; there are probably all kinds of things floating around in there with the electrons. But when it comes down to it, where there is no particle, there is nothing.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/14 "2009-01-02T03:30:07Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#):
>
> The location of an electron in the sense that you are thinking is meaningless. The “clouds” are wavefunctions that represent the location of the electrons. Any discussion of an electrons location beyond the wavefunction is pointless.
But the wave function extends out into the entire universe. Your explanation means there is no such thing as a vacuum. And while that is mathematically correct, it’s rather useless as a practical definition.
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### Author:  [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/15 "2009-01-02T03:43:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> But the wave function extends out into the entire universe. Your explanation means there is no such thing as a vacuum. And while that is mathematically correct, it’s rather useless as a practical definition.
Why is it useless? From what I’ve read about modern physics, the concept of a vacuum from classical physics is an abstraction that has no counterpart in the real world. See [vacuum energy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy).
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### Author:  [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/16 "2009-01-02T03:45:04Z")
> [@jayjay](#):
>
> Believe me, if my brain actually did what I told it to do, I’d be living a whole different life…
Oh, now that is definitely sig material. :D:D:D
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### Author:  [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/17 "2009-01-02T03:52:10Z")
It’s a common misconception that the electron is wizzing around the atom in some way. I’m not even sure if it reasonable to talk about an electrons size. For all practical purposes, the electron “cloud” is where the electron is. Quantum mechanics is not at all like classical mechanics, and there really is no other way to look at it.
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### Author:  [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/18 "2009-01-02T03:57:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> But the wave function extends out into the entire universe. Your explanation means there is no such thing as a vacuum. And while that is mathematically correct, it’s rather useless as a practical definition.
You can cut off your probabilities at whatever percent you like. It still doesn’t make sense to talk about the space between electrons on an atom. The orbitals overlap.
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### Author:  [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/19 "2009-01-02T16:05:24Z")
The picture with the nucleus in the middle and the electrons orbiting it isn’t really meant to represent what an atom looks like … it is just a model that makes it easier to think about how atoms behave.
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### Author:  [@Zygomide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zygomide)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-question-about-chemistry/479502/20 "2009-01-02T17:54:59Z")
**CookingWithGas** , I can’t really describe my understanding of the atom. I’m bad at putting ideas to words, and I apologize for us. But I think the biggest difference between **WarmNPrickly** and me in our concept of the atom is he views the entirety of the orbitals as where the electron is, while I view it as the path the electrons follow. Which could account for major discrepancies in our understanding. However, I’m not convinced that either view is absolutely true.
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