Do atoms exist?

[oliseo]

Considering that light can either be a wave or a particle, he is quite correct.

Consider that no human has actually saw these particles, we have to rely on technology to do so.

I am amazed that we assume that what we see with technology is actually reality. Or rather some electronic interpretation presented to us in a construct we can understand.

It certainly does not categorically prove that they exist as we assume them to be. In school they show elements with electrons in shells. However, the electron is in all possible positions at once. How can this be?

There also is disagreement within the science community regarding a lot of issues. It really riles me when only one "theory" is presented in forums such as this and all other "theories" are dismissed.

Some of the greatest ideas in our history have been dismissed for being considered nonsense at the time.

Finally, it's worth bearing in mind that everything so far is still only theory. There are no "facts" in science, only probabilities.

To dismiss all other theories because they don't fit into your beliefs is as blind as faith in the theologian church.

A huge number of assumptions are made in psychics, and a good deal of the models presented have inconsistencies and contraindication with each other.

At present there is no universal theory, and personally I don't there ever will be.

And hitting your hand on a table isn't proof that something is sold. Actually, the size of electrons, and the space between them and the nucleus, it's actually not very solid at all. It's other "forces" that prevent your hand (also not very solid at all) from going through the table, not the table itself.

 

[RomanNose]

Exactly, that's what I meant by a debate about what matter actually is.
All we can measure are forces and what those forces do to the surroundings and we infer that there exist these things called atoms from the results.

A great book to read on things related to this is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lightne...3148/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1340536481&sr=8-2

Written by one of the guys who won a Nobel prize for coming up with Quantum Chromodynamics.
I have an undergraduate physics degree and found it reasonably heavy going (not maths wise, just in concepts), but it's definitely worth a read if you're up for a challenge.

It's strange to think about it. I guess the shortcut is to say that anything that has mass is matter but then that makes me really confused about Bosons. Are they matter or not?

 

[RomanNose]

Considering that light can either be a wave or a particle, he is quite correct.

Consider that no human has actually saw these particles, we have to rely on technology to do so.

I am amazed that we assume that what we see with technology is actually reality. Or rather some electronic interpretation presented to us in a construct we can understand.

It certainly does not categorically prove that they exist as we assume them to be. In school they show elements with electrons in shells. However, the electron is in all possible positions at once. How can this be?

There also is disagreement within the science community regarding a lot of issues. It really riles me when only one "theory" is presented in forums such as this and all other "theories" are dismissed.

Some of the greatest ideas in our history have been dismissed for being considered nonsense at the time.

Finally, it's worth bearing in mind that everything so far is still only theory. There are no "facts" in science, only probabilities.

To dismiss all other theories because they don't fit into your beliefs is as blind as faith in the theologian church.

A huge number of assumptions are made in psychics, and a good deal of the models presented have inconsistencies and contraindication with each other.

At present there is no universal theory, and personally I don't there ever will be.

And hitting your hand on a table isn't proof that something is sold. Actually, the size of electrons, and the space between them and the nucleus, it's actually not very solid at all. It's other "forces" that prevent your hand (also not very solid at all) from going through the table, not the table itself.

It all comes down to forces and it's the same as rutherford scattering. Really any force proves that there is something underlying, but it's really a matter of opinion what the actual forces mean.

 

[Haircut]

It's strange to think about it. I guess the shortcut is to say that anything that has mass is matter but then that makes me really confused about Bosons. Are they matter or not?

To be honest I'm not sure, but they certainly affect the mass of things.

In the book I mention above Wilczek explains how (most) mass comes around by disturbances in the Higgs field, which is analogous to the Meissner Effect in superconductors.
He explains how our universe is actually a superconductor of the Higgs field and things with matter disturb this, causing mass.

 

[Shayper]

Yes they do.

As far as I'm aware though, the electron shell idea is a bit misleading though, as the shells are where the the electrons have a highest probability of being, rather than where they exist permanently. I need to look it over again though.

 

[Tibbz2]

Yes they do.

As far as I'm aware though, the electron shell idea is a bit misleading though, as the shells are where the the electrons have a highest probability of being, rather than where they exist permanently. I need to look it over again though.

Yeah, our chemistry teacher always goes on about lying to us when talking about electron shells telling us to do A Level chem if we want to see why - yet I think most people already know anyway

 

[Hatter The Mad]

philosophy teacher

He's doing an osophy because he isn't clever enough to grasp an ology.

 

[bhavv]

Ignore him & tell him to get a Proper Degree.

lolphilosophy.

 

[Evoss]

Yes, nothing more needs to be said

 

[PermaBanned]

It's strange to think about it. I guess the shortcut is to say that anything that has mass is matter but then that makes me really confused about Bosons. Are they matter or not?

And OP:



We use electron microscopes to view atoms because no matter how high a magnification you get get from an optical microscope, the wavelength of visible light (~620nm) is much larger than the size of an atom (which varies greatly, but say for Silicon, depending on how you want to measure it, can be about 100-200pm). Plus only molecules with three or more atoms in them even have a chance at reflecting light, like H2O, CO2, CH4 and other greenhouse gasses.

 

[Mason-]

I always thought it was a theory.

Just like pythagoras, it's a theory but it's widely accepted to be true because it can't be proven wrong or right (at this time).

 

[Six7th]

Considering that light can either be a wave or a particle, he is quite correct.

Not strictly true, it exhibits both wave and particle behaviour but this doesn't mean at one point it's a particle and then the next a wave. The motion of light is described by a wave, and its position is described by a wavefunction - which is a mathematical function which determines the probability of the light being in a particular location.

It certainly does not categorically prove that they exist as we assume them to be. In school they show elements with electrons in shells. However, the electron is in all possible positions at once. How can this be?

The electron shell model is incredibly simplified. The electrons are found within orbitals around the nucleus, with the probability of them being found at a certain location described by the wavefunction. Because their location is only a probability it can be said that they are at every location within the orbital, until a measurement of their position is made.

Finally, it's worth bearing in mind that everything so far is still only theory. There are no "facts" in science, only probabilities.

To dismiss all other theories because they don't fit into your beliefs is as blind as faith in the theologian church.

Yes they are theories, but scientific theories. They rely on rock solid evidence found through experiment and observation. It's not about belief but evidence. If the evidence doesn't match the theory, the theory is scrapped or altered.

And hitting your hand on a table isn't proof that something is sold. Actually, the size of electrons, and the space between them and the nucleus, it's actually not very solid at all. It's other "forces" that prevent your hand (also not very solid at all) from going through the table, not the table itself.

You're right, atoms are mostly empty space. However, your hand does not go through the table because of the electrostatic repulsion between the electrons in the table and in our hand, and also because of the Pauli Exclusion Principle, which to put it simply means that atoms can't occupy the same position in space (it's more complicated than this but thats the gist of it). We call something a solid when it exhibits this behaviour. (a long with structural rigidity and resistance to changes in shape/volume)

 

[jsmoke]

Some people call them inherently spread out entities.

 

[AGD]

Bear with me...

My old philosophy teacher said that he didn't believe atoms actually existed; he said that it was just a convenient way to describe the behaviour of matter, and that they didn't exist as they were described to as such, and furthermore atoms have never been directly observed.

Obviously, I'm assuming this is BS, but what is the main evidence that atoms, electrons and so forth exist?

It all depends on what he meant by "exist".

In general though, whether or not something "exists" is not a scientific question. Science provides models for predicting the observable outcomes of certain experiments. It can never tell you what is "real" or what "exists". Those are not well defined concepts (hence why they belong in realm of philosophy).

Many people choose to derive their belief in the nature of reality based upon scientific models, but science itself does not make any statements about such matters.

 

[PermaBanned]

And OP:



We use electron microscopes to view atoms because no matter how high a magnification you get get from an optical microscope, the wavelength of visible light (~620nm) is much larger than the size of an atom (which varies greatly, but say for Silicon, depending on how you want to measure it, can be about 100-200pm). Plus only molecules with three or more atoms in them even have a chance at reflecting light, like H2O, CO2, CH4 and other greenhouse gasses.

Just thought i'd quote this since last posts on a page often get skipped.

 

[Tomsk]

Bear with me...

My old philosophy teacher said that he didn't believe atoms actually existed; he said that it was just a convenient way to describe the behaviour of matter, and that they didn't exist as they were described to as such, and furthermore atoms have never been directly observed.

Obviously, I'm assuming this is BS, but what is the main evidence that atoms, electrons and so forth exist?

Belief does not always equal fact or truth.

 

[Burnsy2023]

I always thought it was a theory.

You misunderstand what a scientific theory is. Is it not a theory like most people would use the work in common usage; that is a hypothesis.

 

[Robosapien]

Not strictly true, it exhibits both wave and particle behaviour but this doesn't mean at one point it's a particle and then the next a wave. The motion of light is described by a wave, and its position is described by a wavefunction - which is a mathematical function which determines the probability of the light being in a particular location.



The electron shell model is incredibly simplified. The electrons are found within orbitals around the nucleus, with the probability of them being found at a certain location described by the wavefunction. Because their location is only a probability it can be said that they are at every location within the orbital, until a measurement of their position is made.



Yes they are theories, but scientific theories. They rely on rock solid evidence found through experiment and observation. It's not about belief but evidence. If the evidence doesn't match the theory, the theory is scrapped or altered.

It's not that straightforward - even if one particle is fired through a pair of double slits you still get a diffraction pattern. How does that happen if it's, as you imply, particles exhibiting wavelike behaviour, with the wave equation simply giving position.

The act of observing the position actually changes the system. So the wavefunction only really tells us what the system will be like once a measurement is made - we don't know for certain what the system is like before we fire something in there and screw things up.

It amazes me how we drew such an obvious conclusion from the Rutherford experiment (and most of cosmology's assumptions are staggering too). It's always just a model which gives us the right result, until a better model comes along. And we're always going to have to rely on that magic overlap between the real physical world, the mathematical realm, and the human brains interpretation of it all.

Most of string theory is unlikely to be provable. Hell there are hundreds of different variants.

AGD said it best. Depends of definition of 'exist'. All of life could just be some grand illusion. Including atoms. Not that hard a philosophical idea to get your head around really, despite the proof of atoms!

 

[Fenris]

Just like pythagoras, it's a theory but it's widely accepted to be true because it can't be proven wrong or right (at this time).

You just forfeit your right to a brain.

 

[PermaBanned]

Pythagorean theorem is maths. And maths, unlike science, does deal in definitive proof.