Modern-day chemistry is the physics of electron valences. It has been since I was in school, so it’s been that way your whole life.
As for “practical intents and purposes” what does that even mean? You have no real need to use any model of atoms in your everyday life unless you do so professionally, in which case the atoms as billiard balls - which I can’t imagine they’re still teaching anywhere - doesn’t work worth a damn.
If you want to understand chemistry at any intellectual level at all, you have to start with electron valences. You can pretty much end there as well. Quarks and mesons and bits fall into the category of physics. If you want to understand physics, you can choose to understand as much or as little as you want. But you still have to start with protons, neutrons, and electrons, with the electromagnetic, strong, and weak forces, with quarks, mesons, neutrinos, and other decay particles, with matter and antimatter, and with a bunch of other stuff just to be able to read the threads on physics here on the Dope.
You don’t have to read any of those either, though. But if you do, it won’t help you to have either a false understanding of science or a non-existent understanding of science. And you’ll be missing some of the most fascinating discussion in GQ, because we have real experts posting real cutting edge science.
Exapno, the example ed gave, fitted my “practical intents and purposes” stipulation. I’m sure there will be other uses that I am unaware of, but this is what I meant, as opposed to philosophising about what matter consists of.
I have only the most fundamental knowledge of the things you have mentioned, so I imagine some of the more technical topics here on SDMB might go over my head, but if it can be explained in ‘laymans’ language, I’m sure I’ll be able to understand the basics.
With all this talk of quantum mechanics, virtual particles, quantum foam and the probabilities inherent in the sub atomic world is it safe to say at a fundamental level a vacuum as is commonly understood can not exist. The answer to the old question of something from nothing is answered by the laws of quantum mechanics as There can never be…Nothing. Do I make sense?
If that’s what you meant by practical purposes, then literally everything requires more a billiard ball understand of atoms. That includes paint colors, new perfumes, artificial foods, all nanoparticle technology, all medical advances, everything you touch or see or handle in the course of a day. The lasers in CDs and DVDs alone require quantum physics. Biology, geology, chemistry, astronomy, meteorology, they’re all subsets of physics these days. Physics is more than practical: it’s fundamental.
Now stranger, don’t go confusing things! That crazy clerk never liked the cat anyway. And the swedes wisely (heh) decided to politely ignore that invariance talk and concentrate on the important stuff-the photoelectric effect. The ability to turn streetlights on and off all by themselves is important! Understanding the picky details is what physicists do, so that is what mattered to the swedes.
Ignoring the whole virtual particles and bad quotes thing, why must space consist of something? The atom content of a perfect vacuum is the same as the orangutan content of an empty grocery bag – none. “Empty” isn’t really all that odd a concept, and given the number of atoms in the universe compared the the number of potential places to put them…large areas of “empty” are pretty much required.
Isn’t there a lot of empty space between atoms? For instance your chair is more empty space than stuff I thought. Or does the quantum foam play in there too?
Please pardon my intrusion but I was wondering if it would be ok for me to use (with proper attribution!) your comment about physics on my Facebook quote page, Stranger.
