Nothing's Really Matter

Originally featured in The Salty Fish Bowl - March 2010

Quantum physicists tell us that 99.99% of an atom's mass is in its nucleus, which consists of (positively charged) protons and (neutral) neutrons, with the rest being made up of (negatively charged) electrons arbitrarily whizzing around (or disappearing and reappearing elsewhere) within the surrounding energy field. The reason there is such a discrepancy in the distribution of mass is that the space taken up by the nucleus is inordinately smaller than the area taken up by those unpredictable electrons. It's been reckoned that if the nucleus of an atom were the size of a grain of sand, the atom itself would be the size of a football field. Essentially what they're telling us is that matter is almost entirely made up of empty space. Non-intuitive? If this is the case, shouldn't we be able to walk through walls? Well, no. The reason we don't just pass through other objects is that most of the particles we're talking about are electrically charged, causing atoms to repel each other, on a quantum scale. The atoms in your hand repel the atoms in someone else's, and thus a high five. So, if we assume atoms repel other atoms, then not only can we not pass through things, but we never actually touch them either. If you're sitting on a chair right now, you're not actually sitting on it, but rather hovering above it.

This may seem like useless information in terms of every day life, but it can be applied practically. For instance, if you drop your mug at the coffee shop and make a mess, don't worry, the case can be made that you were never holding it to begin with. Demand a refill. If you happen to commit murder, just hire a physicist as an expert witness, and they'll tell the court you never even touched the victim. And if you're the unfortunate witness of a criminal act, just tell the cops that the crime in question was merely your brain's interpretation of the photons of light that bounced away from your eyes before ever hitting them. You didn't see nuthin'. The possibilities are endless.

This does raise some more obvious questions though, like how does sandpaper work, and why are my tires bald? If nothing ever touches, how does anything have an effect on anything else? Why do I care if I stepped in dog doo? It becomes a metaphysical problem at this point. If matter is virtually nothing, does virtually nothing matter? Applying what we now know of the microscopic world to our own lives, don't atoms seem like really tiny people? They bounce around, superficially interacting with those in their midst, but never really affecting them in any profound way. Keep upping the ante. Aren't people just like planets and stars; ever orbiting, pulling each other this way and that, but rarely having any meaningful spiritual affect on each other? From the atomic to the astronomic, it seems everything is the same.

So if everything is the same, and if everything we know is 99.99% empty (this column perhaps especially), what does it all mean? Why, and how, are we here? Are we mere byproducts of billions of years of atomic evolution, simply descendants of the first atoms? Theologically speaking, does that make Adam the first atom? I’m not sure that Faith or faith in Science will ever answer that quandary. Perhaps on some level it’s best to not worry too much about the why’s and whatfor’s, on any scale. Some things really are best left to wonder.