Romun Nose

Today the science of theoretical physics accepts that the ultimate structure of the macroscopic matter of our direct sensory experience is one composed of atoms that are in eternal kinetic motion and are colliding with one another at high velocities within a vacuum in all the three natural states, the solid, the liquid and the gaseous states.
And, with respect to the accepted internal structure of the atom itself, the Standard Model, this is stated to be composed of a relatively minuscule nucleus with a ‘cloud’ of even smaller electrons which define the outer, nominally spherical, limits of the atom, while the remaining volume is a vacuum.
Oxford physicist Frank Close, in his book ‘The Void’, states unequivocally that the matter content of an atom occupies one trillionth of the total volume “while the rest is a perfect vacuum” (1)
If these models are put into a comprehensible perspective with a nucleus of a hydrogen atom presented as having the diameter of 1mm (the square below on the left represents such a nucleus) the atoms single electron would be orbiting at an altitude of over 2 metres. (Note that on this scale the electron, the dot on the right, would not be visible on this page as it would be less than one pixel in diameter).

Nucleus ▪ <—————————– 2.3 Metres ———————————–> · Electron

At this perspective, within macroscopic matter, the nearest adjacent atom to an atom of such dimensions in a ‘kinetic’ gas at a pressure similar to that at Earth’s surface, would be, on average, around 23 metres away.
These relative dimensions of atoms would mean that the total volume of matter in atmospheric gases is one quadrillionth of the total volume, 1 part in 1,000,000,000,000,000. This would be the actual matter content of the gases that sustain us, and this hypothetical result of the historical development of the kinetic atomic theory of gases is simply absurd.

The main problem with this model is that there is no possible explanation for the transmission of the force of gravity between any two material objects separated by a vacuum.
In this context in 1693 Isaac Newton wrote, in a letter to Richard Bentley at Cambridge :-
“That gravity should be innate, inherent and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of any thing else by and through which their action or force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters any competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it.”

Since then physicists have been trying to come up with a medium, an aether, occupying the vacuum (a contradiction in terms) which could provide a means of transferring of light and forces through it.
Numerous aethers have been put forward and new ones are still being proposed. Einstein’s space-time continuum is just one, and about this Nobel Prize winner Robert Laughlin has this to say:-
“The word ‘ether’ has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. The modern concept of the vacuum of space is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo.” (2)
So today the vacuum has been, and is still being ‘filled’ with aethers, today string theory, the quantum vacuum and zero point energy are just some of those favoured by some mainstream physicists.
“Æthers were invented for the planets to swim in, to constitute electric atmospheres and magnetic effluvia, to convey sensations from one part of our bodies to another, and so on, till a space had been filled three or four times with æthers.” (3)
The problem for all of these concepts is that kinetic atomic theory requires that the vacuum/aether surrounding atoms has no qualities that can impede the eternal motion of an atom in any way.
Accordingly such vacuum filling aethers have to have remarkable properties, firstly to be able to allow the free motion of atoms and at the same time to be able to transfer gravity, magnetism and electromagnetic radiation, but since there is absolutely no possibility of experimental verification of such media, all of these are purely speculative constructs.

So to paraphrase Newton’s statement in today’s context:-
“that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum or through any speculative medium that is said to be a component of it, which mediums are, of theoretical necessity, required to have no qualities of resistive (or other) effects on the free motion of atoms within it, (in) which their action or force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters any competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it.”
If Newton’s elegant language is translated into the colloquial, someone not having a “competent faculty of thinking” means that they are stupid.

It is an undeniable fact that theoretical physicists today accept a zero-inertia, non-material, ’empty space’ of some description as an integral, and by far and away the largest, volumetric component of macroscopic and of sub-atomic matter.
And, as they accept these hypothetical structures of macroscopic and sub-atomic matter as being valid, they must therefore believe that somehow it is possible that gravity can be transmitted through and within it.
So it can be said that they do not “in philosophical matters ‘have’ any competent faculty of thinking”, ergo – they are stupid.

1) ‘The Void’ Frank Close, OUP, 2007
2) Laughlin, Robert B. (2005). A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down. NY, NY: Basic Books. pp. 120–121
3) Encyclopaedia Britannica, Maxwell (1965, vol. 2, p. 763)

“Atoms are the basic units of matter and the defining structure of elements.”

“Atoms are the basis of chemistry and they are the basis for everything

in the Universe.” (1)

It is now known that atoms are the ultimate natural division of matter, in other words it is effectively proven that this is the case.
But up until around 35 years ago the atom was still a hypothetical entity. And, while for most of the last century its existence was almost a certainty, a definitive proof had to wait until the technology of electron microscopy was perfected in the early 1980’s.
Since then many thousands of images of atoms in solid matter have been produced and published for all to see, and individual atoms have even been manipulated into positions on surfaces to create company logos, rings and other shapes, as in the image below.

Dalton introduced his solid, spherical, indestructible atoms at the beginning of the 1800’s, and, if we ignore the belated acceptance of Avogadro’s multi-atomic molecular structures and J J Thompson’s ‘plumb pudding’ model atom later that century, the next significant change to the structure of atoms was Rutherford’s model in the early 1900’s.

Since then physicists have focused their attention on examining this structure and today have arrived at a hypothetical structure described, broadly speaking, as the Standard Model.
Which model atom, in essence, is composed of a nucleus, and the extent of the atom’s influence is defined by a ‘cloud’ of particles – electrons. The nucleus and the surrounding electrons are said to be separated by a “perfect vacuum” (2), which vacuum occupies almost all of the volume of an atom, while the proportion of matter represented by all these sub-atomic particles is one trillionth of its total volume.

So the hypothetical atomic structure has changed dramatically from an indestructible solid sphere to what could be termed, essentially, as a ‘vacuum’ atom, and if this model is put into a comprehensible perspective with a nucleus of a hydrogen atom presented as having the diameter of 1mm (the square below on the left represents such a nucleus) the atoms single electron would be orbiting at an altitude from it of over 2 metres. (Note that on this scale the electron, the dot on the right, would not be visible on this page as it would be less than one pixel in diameter)

Nucleus ▪   <  ———————-          2.3 Metres        ————————->  · Electron

This 2mm diameter nucleus of such an atom would exert influence over a nominally spherical ‘empty space’, as defined by its electron, having a diameter of 4.6 metres and two such atoms are presented below at the point of a ‘kinetic’ collision. (The nuclei are not included as obviously on this scale they would be invisible, while the dashed circles represent the extent of the nominal orbits of their single electrons.)

This projected collision, at a combined velocity of up to 3600 metres per second is, in terms of the kinetic atomic theory of gases, required to be one of perfect elasticity with no loss of energy and of the average motion of both atoms. But it is rather difficult to imagine how a collision of these ‘vacuum’ atoms could result in such a ‘perfect’ collision.

However this picture is a simple one and the material structure of the atom today as postulated by particle physicists is one of extreme complexity, the nucleus said to be composed of around 300 particles.

This hypothetical structure is the result of a huge investment by governments (i.e. taxpayers) around the world over the last 70-80 years, exemplified by the cost of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN which has cost over $13 billion to date and has an annual budget of $1 billion.
But for all this effort a commentator has said “There have been tremendous advances in most areas of physics, such as materials science and hydrodynamics, which remain tied to experiment, but since the development of QED in 1928-1930 there have been no major gains in our understanding of the underlying structure of matter” (3).

And today for theoretical physicists, the ultimate structure of macroscopic matter remains in essence, that as postulated following Rutherford’s experiments at the turn of the last century, in that atoms are almost entirely a “perfect vacuum” and that atomic interactions are based upon their ‘kinetic’ motion within an extra-atomic vacuum.
Perhaps the reason for physicist’s focus on the internal structure is that, as there is no possibility of the transmission of gravitational forces through and between the vacuum separating such discontinuous atoms, they live in hope that the answers could lie in the sub-atomic structure of the atom itself.
But a few years back a journalist asked a physicist at CERN as to what the practical benefits would be if the Higg’s boson was discovered, and she said“None that I can think of”.

If the atom is itself almost entirely a perfect vacuum and its mass is overwhelmingly concentrated in the nucleus, then again there is no possibility of an sensible explanation for the transfer of a gravitational force from the mass of the nucleus outward to and beyond its outer periphery.
But gravity is a function of mass and perhaps it is time, after decades of failure, to consider that there is something fundamentally wrong with the theory on which all of theoretical physics is based, and which needs a vast inter-atomic, non-material, ‘empty space’ to function – the kinetic atomic theory of gases.
If the atom is the ultimate natural repository of matter, then surely it is also, both collectively and individually, the ultimate natural source of all forces and the ultimate natural vehicle for transmission.
The images below (courtesy of IBM Almaden) shows a surface of platinum atoms and in this there is no sign of the ‘lattice structure’ or of an oscillating motion of these atoms as predicted by kinetic theory.

Of course, as with any prior evidence that tended to contradict the kinetic atomic theory of gases this ‘apparent’ continuity was explained as a failure of the apparatus, and an example of this is by H C von Baeyer (4) and I quote:-

“The apparent continuousness of STM images has two fundamental causes. First there is the problem of resolution. No matter how fine the needle of a scanning probe may be, its tip can be no smaller than an atom. This means in turn that the pictures it makes are limited in sharpness. – In the domain of the atom there will always come a point when two separate features of an object appear as one because the probe is too clumsy to tell them apart.

The second cause — (is that) in bulk matter, and on surfaces, neighbouring atoms bump and jostle each other, and all the while share electrons. Their electron clouds are so intertwined that it is impossible to distinguish which electron belongs to which atom. Metals and other conductors are suffused with electrons that are free to roam over the entire sample – obliterating the structural details of individual atoms.”

If the ‘electron clouds‘ are ‘intertwined’ with those of adjacent atoms, then surely there is no distinct intervening ’empty space’.

But there are thousands of such images above which clearly indicate, as was first suggested by Newton, that atoms are “pressing upon each other”, in other words that the process of attraction and repulsion is acting between these atoms.

No one, and certainly no physicist, knows what matter is ultimately and so they cannot say with any certainty that in an atom matter is ‘here’ and not ‘there’.
The Standard Model ‘vacuum’ atom as outlined earlier is clearly an absurdity, however the suggestion that its mass is concentrated on its central core is not.
But that does not mean that the remaining volume is empty of matter, and instead I suggest that matter occupies the whole volume of an atom, and that the density of its matter field increases exponentially from its outer peripheries to the core.
Accordingly, as there is no possibility of an attractive force acting through a sub-atomic vacuum from a defined nucleus of relatively minuscule dimensions, the only possible alternative is that this hypothetical vacuum does not ‘exist’ and atoms are entirely material.

In the image above the distortion from a natural spherical shape to a hexagonal form at the borders between these atoms can only be the result of the actions of a mutually acting repulsive force, and clearly this also indicates that an attractive force is acting from each atom to all adjacent atoms and that their outer peripheries are distortable to some extent.

If, as indicated, atoms form a continuous structure in macroscopic matter, the transfer of forces is clearly possible, atom to atom, through and within the structure, and clearly the external attractive force generated by a massive solid body, such as a metal sphere, would be the result of the collective masses of all its constituent atoms.

Which, just incidentally, is exactly what is observed in experiments.

(1) Textbook quotes

(2) ‘The Void’ Frank Close, OUP, 2007

(3) ‘The Big Bang Never Happened’, Eric J Lerner, P 358

(4) ‘Taming the Atom’ , Hans Christiaan von Baeyer, Random House, 1992

Fundamentals of Physics

1) A Brief History of Kinetic Atomic Theory

From about 600 BC Greek philosophers were speculating about the nature of the physical world and of matter itself. Thales at this time suggested that all matter originated from water (and that the earth was a flat disk floating in a sea of water).
Anaxagoras, who died in 428 BC suggested that all matter consisted of infinite numbers of infinitely small particles he called ‘seeds’ and that all bodies are simply aggregations of these particles.
Leucippus, who was aware that matter had three natural states, and has been credited with founding an atomic theory of matter, developed Anaxagoras’ ideas. However his writings on the subject did not survive like those of his pupil Democritus, who about 400 BC suggested that ‘matter consisted of minute hard particles moving as separate units in empty space’. This being the first suggestion of the ‘existence’ of the vacuum state.

But numerous questions remained, such as how these solid particles, even if moving, could remain suspended in empty space without falling and, as Aristotle (384-322 BC) subsequently asked; “How did these particles originally attain their velocity?”
Aristotle also rejected the concept of an ‘empty space’ or a vacuum, clearly articulating that a vacuum could not exist, and also promoted the idea that the world was composed of just four elements, earth, air, fire and water and his ideas were generally accepted for two millenia, when Galileo’s pupil Torricelli’s experiments in 1643 were widely believed to have proven the ‘existence’ of the vacuum.
This led to a re-evaluation of Aristotle’s four elements concept, and of the alternative ideas of Democritus. As a result, soon after in 1647, Pierre Gassendi resurrected atomic theory and wrote that ‘atoms (are) similar in substance, although different in size and form, (and) move in all directions through empty space and (are) devoid of all qualities except absolute rigidity’.
Bernoulli suggested in a 1738 publication that ‘the pressure of a gas on the walls of a vessel is the result of the innumerable collisions of its molecules with the walls’ and the fluctuations in pressure were explained by the suggestion that ‘heat applied to a gas results in an increase in the velocity of the molecules and a corresponding increase in collisions with the walls’.
In the latter part of the 1700s two of Aristotle’s four elements, air and water, were separated into their constituent gases, which gases were identified and named, and the ‘four elements’ concept was finally proven to be false.

In 1808 Dalton published his theory of atoms (as solid, perfectly elastic, and indestructible spheres) based upon his observations of how different elements combine to form compounds, such as with the combination of Hydrogen and Oxygen to form Water. Dalton also presented in this publication his Laws of Multiple Proportions, (i.e. ‘when two elements combine in a series of compounds, the ratio of weights of one element combines with the fixed weight of the second element in a ratio of small whole numbers’).
These laws together with Gay-Lussac’s Laws of Combining Volumes (i.e. when gases combine they do so in volumes that are in a ratio of small whole numbers) indicated that matter is divided into discrete, separate particles, which laws were seen as a confirmation of the atomic hypothesis.

In 1827 the British botanist Robert Brown discovered the phenomenon, later called Brownian Motion, which is the observed random movement of microscopic particles suspended in a gas or liquid. This motion of, for example, grains of pollen or smoke particles in air, appears to be completely random in both direction and dimension.
This was later put forward as a visual manifestation of the effect of ‘kinetic’ atoms/molecules colliding with these particles. It was suggested that the inherent motion of the atoms/molecules in their collisions with the suspended particles induce their observed random motions.

In 1834 Émile Clapeyron introduced his equation of state for an ideal gas, which “is a good approximation to the behavior of many gases under many conditions, although it has several limitations”.
“The ideal gas law can also be derived from first principles using the kinetic theory of gases, in which several simplifying assumptions are made, chief among which are that the molecules, or atoms, of the gas are point masses, possessing mass but no significant volume, and undergo only elastic collisions with each other and the sides of the container in which both linear momentum and kinetic energy are conserved.” (Wikipedia)

Debate continued on the merits of one or the other theories of matter during the first half of the 1800’s but the next significant development came when Clerk Maxwell, following work by Krönig and Clausius, in 1859 put forward his ‘Law of Distribution of Velocities’ as a statistical or mathematical explanation of the distribution of kinetic molecular velocities in gases.
The importance of the Maxwell distribution function, and of the later, more general Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution function ‘is that they contain all the information necessary to calculate any measurable variable of a gas’ such as the pressure, temperature, or volume.
Clerk Maxwell based his statistics on the following assumptions.
1) Molecules are perfectly elastic balls of atomic dimensions that are in perpetual random motion.
2) The average kinetic energy of the molecules is proportional to the absolute temperature of the gas.
3) The molecules do not exert any appreciable attraction on each other.
4) The volume of the molecules is infinitesimal when compared to the volume of the gas.
5) The time spent in collisions is small compared with the time between collisions
(Inherent in assumption 4 is the concept of ‘empty space’, however Clerk Maxwell did not define this, either as a pure vacuum or as an ‘aether’, however he did not accept that a vacuum was a possible state)

Some principles of kinetic atomic theory are described as follows: –
Atoms in a gas, within a container, are ‘rushing around at different velocities and bouncing off each other and the walls like a three-dimensional game of billiards’ and ‘are moving in random directions, and because as many move in one direction as another, the average velocity of the molecules is zero’ – in other words the gas as a whole is not moving or producing unequal pressure on any inside surface of the container.
‘Pressure arises from the multiple collisions the atoms of a gas have with the walls that contain the gas’ and ‘heat applied to a gas results in an increase in the velocity of the atoms and a corresponding increase in collisions with the walls’
Also ‘when the fast moving atoms of a hot gas collide with slower moving atoms of a cooler gas, kinetic energy is transferred from the ‘hot’ to the ‘cold’ atoms’.
‘The collisions between atoms/molecules are completely elastic’, or in other words no energy of motion or ‘kinetic’ energy is lost as a result of any collision with other atoms/molecules of the gas or of the container.
‘The duration of collisions of atoms is about one thousandth of the time between collisions. Atoms spend the overwhelming part of their time in free motion, and collisions are a rare event in their life.’
In addition the theory suggests that the atoms of a gas only take up a minute proportion of the actual space the gas occupies. ‘An atom generally takes up only 1/1000th of the volume available to it and if we were to scale atoms to the size of human beings with a radius of 0.5 m, they would be spaced some 10m apart.’
In other words in any given volume of gas only about 0.1% is matter in the form of atoms. To put this in some sort of perspective 1000 cubic centimetres (one Litre) of gas contains a total volume of atomic matter that could be fitted into 1 cc while the remaining 999 cc is empty ‘space’.
With this spacing the atoms, on average, have to go some distance before colliding with another and the theory states that ‘the mean free path of an atom is some 3000 times greater than the diameter of the atom itself’.
Note: Quotations above are extracts from various University level textbooks.

In 1873 van der Waals introduced his equation of state, which was “an equation relating the density of gases and liquids to the pressure (p), volume (V), and temperature (T) conditions. It can be viewed as an adjustment to the ideal gas law that takes into account the non-zero volume of gas molecules, which are subject to a inter-particle attraction.
It successfully approximates the behavior of real fluids above their critical temperatures and is qualitatively reasonable for their liquid and low-pressure gaseous states at low temperatures. However, near the transitions between gas and liquid, in the range of p, V, and T where the liquid phase and the gas phase are in equilibrium, the van der Waals equation fails to accurately model observed experimental behaviour, in particular that p is a constant function of V at given temperatures. As such, the van der Waals model is not useful only for calculations intended to predict real behavior in regions near the critical point.
Empirical corrections to address these predictive deficiencies have been inserted into the van der Waals model, e.g., by Clerk Maxwell 1890 in his equal area rule, and related but distinct theoretical models, e.g., based on the principal of corresponding states, have been developed to achieve better fits to real fluid behaviour in equations of comparable complexity. (Wikipedia)

“It is quite clear from the (given) examples that this (the van der Waals) equation (of state) is only approximately true and is suitable only for rough quantitative assessments of the relationships between the parameters determining the state of a real substance.”1(My emphases)
With respect to the atom itself, in 1884 J J Thompson relegated Dalton’s model to history and introduced a new structure, his ‘plum pudding atom’.
“J.J. Thomson studied the conduction of electricity through gases, and experimented with cathode rays. He realised that he could deflect the cathode rays in an electric field produced by a pair of metal plates and argued that the cathode ray consisted of small charged particles, and by using different types of cathodes realised that the particles existed in many types of atoms.
He concluded that the particles were a universal constituent of matter – they form part of all the atoms in the universe. We now know these particles as electrons.”2

To return to kinetic-atomic theory it necessary here to point out that it was not generally accepted at the turn of the century. Nobel Laureate Max Planck for example wrote that “every attempt at elaborating the theory has not only not led to new physical results but has run into overwhelming difficulties”.3
Another Nobel winner, Wilhelm Ostwald, said that it is “a superficial habit to cover up rather than promote actual scientific tasks by arbitrary assumptions about atomic positions, motion and vibrations”.3

But in a 1905 paper on Brownian motion, Albert Einstein asserted ‘that Brownian motion, although random obeys a definite statistical law and is in accordance with statistics used by Boltzmann and Maxwell to describe the kinetic motion of molecules’.
And then in 1908, Jean Perrin (who ‘was committed to the usefulness and the truth of molecular kinetic theory’) subjected Brownian motion to detailed microscopic analysis over a period of five years. The results of which work were generally accepted as confirming the existence of atoms and molecules and of their random kinetic motion.
In his book ‘Les Atomes’ (an English translation of which was published in 1916) he states, that ‘each molecule of the air we breathe is moving with the velocity of a rifle bullet: travels in a straight line between two impacts for a distance of nearly one ten thousandth of a millimetre: is deflected from its course 5000 million times per second –. There are 30 milliard milliard (billion billion) molecules in a cubic centimetre of air, under normal conditions. 3000 million of them placed side-by-side in a straight line would be required to make up 1 millimetre. 20,000 million must be gathered together to make up 1000 millionth of a milligram’.
He also subsequently states with respect to Brownian motion that ‘every granule suspended in a fluid (i.e. gas or liquid) is being struck continually by the molecules in its neighbourhood and receives impulses from them that do not in general exactly counterbalance each other; consequently it is tossed hither and thither in an irregular fashion.’
Further Perrin says that ‘the work developed by the stoppage of a molecule would be sufficient to raise a spherical drop of water 1 micron in diameter to a height of nearly 1 micron’.

The diagram below shows Perrin’s comparative dimensions with atoms increased to 2 mm diameter, and in this perspective the surface of the gamboge particle at this scale can only be shown as a straight line.
Accordingly, at this perspective, he is suggesting that a single collision, out of untold billions of simultaneous collisions from every direction over the whole surface of the particle, could move this particle the equivalent of more than 600 metres.

With the subsequent elevation of Einstein to worldwide fame after the First World War, any doubts about the validity of the kinetic theory of gases dissipated.

Ernest Rutherford in 1909 set up an experiment that involved directing helium nuclei, which he called alpha particles, at sheets of gold foil of a thickness of 0.00004 cm. Most of the particles went straight through the foil, however a small number, 1 in 20,000, were deflected strongly at an average of 90° while some came directly back, which astonished Rutherford.
Analysing these results led him to propose a completely different picture of the atom in 1911. The ‘Rutherford’ atom has a very small, (relative to the total suggested volume of the atom) unimaginably dense nucleus and is surrounded by one or more minute, and also very dense, electrons orbiting the nucleus at high speed. The nucleus consists of protons, which are particles with a positive electrical charge, and neutrons, which are electrically neutral, while the orbiting electrons have negative charge.
The mass of the electron is calculated to be about 0.0005 of the mass of the proton (the hydrogen nucleus) and they are extremely dense at 2 x 1017 Kg/M3. Rutherford calculated the diameter of the nucleus to be between 1/10,000 and 1/100,000 of that of the outer orbit of the electron/s.
The outer orbit of the electrons is considered the extent of the atom, and the remaining space between the nucleus and the orbiting electrons is a “perfect vacuum”.4

The outer limits of these orbits, or the ‘shield’ of an atom are assumed to describe a sphere.
To put this in rough perspective, if a hydrogen nucleus was scaled up to the size of a pea then the orbit of its electron would be greater than the diameter of a football stadium and would be very difficult to see with a diameter of 3mm. The mass of the pea to scale would be 800 million tonnes while the electron would weigh about 400,000 tonnes (and would be invisible to the human eye with a diameter of .003 mm).
Thus the change in the hypothetical structure of the atom is dramatic, from the solid indestructible spheres of Dalton, via Thomson’s ‘plum pudding’ model, to an atom whose mass is concentrated in an almost insignificant volume.
But this new picture did not lead to any dramatic modification or adjustment to kinetic atomic theory in respect to the presumption of the perfect elasticity of molecules and atoms during their mutual collisions, or to the nature of the separating ’empty space’.

With respect to Kinetic Theory, Richard Feynman states in The Feynman Lectures in Physics 5 :-
“It is obvious that this is a difficult subject, and we emphasize at the beginning that it is in fact an extremely difficult subject, and that we have to deal with it differently than we have dealt with the other subjects so far. In the case of mechanics and in the case of light, we were able to begin with a precise statement of some laws, like Newton’s laws, or the formula for the field produced by an accelerating charge, from which a whole host of phenomena could be essentially understood, and which would produce a basis for our understanding of mechanics and of light from that time on. – but we do not learn different physics, we only learn better methods of mathematical analysis to deal with the situation.
We cannot use this approach effectively in studying the properties of matter. We can discuss matter only in a most elementary way; it is much too complicated a subject to analyze directly from its specific basic laws, which are none other than the laws of mechanics and electricity. But these are a bit too far away from the properties we wish to study; it takes too many steps to get from Newton’s laws to the properties of matter, and these steps are, in themselves, fairly complicated. We will now start to take some of these steps, but while many of our analyses will be quite accurate, they will eventually get less and less accurate. We will have only a rough understanding of the properties of matter.”
(Note the emphasis ‘extremely‘ is Feynman’s own, the others are mine)

So today this, now very complex, theory remains firmly in place as the ultimate basis of all atomic physics, and from the core assumptions of this theory the hypothetical structures of the wider universe and of the sub-atomic arena today have been developed and are based.
But the main, and by far the most important, problem with this theory of discontinuous atoms also remains firmly in place, as the transmission of gravity through and within this hypothetical structure is inexplicable.
It is an undeniable fact that it is impossible to transmit a force between two masses, of any dimension, through a non-resistive, non-interacting ’empty’ space of any hypothetical, speculative description. The transmission of any force is totally dependent on action and reaction, as defined by Newton’s Third Law, and there is no such thing as ‘action-at-a-distance’.
As Newton stated, in essence, 350 years ago, anyone who believes this to be possible is stupid.
He also wrote that “Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” and today it is not only the kinetic theory of gases that is extremely complex it is all of current theoretical physics, from sub-atomic particle physics to astrophysics.
The result of this complexity is that any two physicists, even those working in similar areas, will have different interpretations and opinions, and put four or more together they will argue for hours and still not come to any mutual agreement.
There are two options, either stay with the status quo and hope that some genius will come up with a solution to transmission through the vacuum, or accept that this core theory of modern physics is false and seriously review it.

1) ‘Molecular Physics’ Kirkoin & Kirkoin, Mir Publishers
2) http://www-outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/camphy/electron/electron1_1.htm
3) ‘Method and Appraisal in the Physical Sciences: The Critical Background to Modern Science’, 1800-1905, Colin Howson, CUP 1976.
4) Frank Close ‘The Void’ OUP 2007
5) http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_39.html