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)