Take a moment to look around you. Everything you see—your desk, your phone, the people nearby, even your own body—feels solid, substantial, and undeniably real.
But here’s the wild truth: 99.9999999% of everything in the universe, including you, is empty space.
Yes, you read that right. Strip away the empty voids in your atoms, and you, along with every other human on Earth, could fit into the volume of a sugar cube.
Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?
Yet, this fact is backed by physics and is one of the most humbling insights into the nature of reality.
How is this possible?
It all comes down to the structure of atoms, the building blocks of everything.
Atoms are mostly empty, with a dense nucleus at their center and electrons zipping around in the vast space surrounding it.
If the nucleus were the size of a peanut, the rest of the atom would be as large as a baseball stadium.
But wait—if everything is almost entirely empty space, why do we experience the world as solid?
Why don’t we fall through floors, phase through walls, or sink into our chairs like ghosts?
The answer will challenge everything you thought you understood about matter, space, and even reality itself.
Empty Space, Big Impact
Let’s start at the heart of the matter—literally.
An atom consists of a nucleus made up of protons and neutrons, surrounded by a cloud of electrons.
The nucleus is incredibly dense and small, accounting for almost all of the atom’s mass, while the electrons define the atom’s size.
To put this in perspective, the nucleus is about 100,000 times smaller than the atom itself.
That’s why physicists say atoms are mostly empty space.
If you removed all the empty space from the atoms in your body, you’d shrink to the size of a dust particle.
The entire human population, reduced to this compacted state, could fit comfortably into a sugar cube.
But here’s the kicker: most of your mass doesn’t come from the particles themselves.
Where Does Mass Come From?
At a basic level, atoms are made of three particles: electrons, protons, and neutrons.
However, the story gets stranger the deeper you go.
Protons and neutrons, which make up the nucleus, consist of even smaller particles called quarks, held together by massless particles called gluons.
Surprisingly, the mass of the quarks is only a tiny fraction of the mass of a proton or neutron.
So where does the rest of the mass come from? The answer lies in energy.
According to Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc², energy and mass are interchangeable.
The majority of your mass comes from the kinetic energy of quarks and the binding energy of gluons inside protons and neutrons.
In essence, you are made up of energy that’s trapped in a swirling dance of fundamental particles.
This realization is mind-bending. It means that the “substance” we think of as solid and tangible is actually energy, held together in a delicate balance of forces.
Why Doesn’t Empty Space Feel Empty?
Now here’s a twist to challenge your perception: if atoms are mostly empty space, why does everything feel so solid?
Why can’t we pass through walls like ghosts, or high-five someone and have our hands glide right through theirs?
The answer lies in quantum mechanics and the strange behavior of electrons.
While electrons technically have no volume—they’re point particles—they occupy space through their wave functions.
A wave function is a quantum property that describes where an electron is likely to be found.
This space-filling behavior of electrons creates what we perceive as solidity.
Imagine a fan with spinning blades.
When the fan is off, you can reach your hand through the gaps between the blades.
But when the fan is on, the blades move so fast that they create the illusion of a solid barrier, even though much of the space is still empty.
Electrons behave like the spinning blades of a fan.
They move so rapidly and occupy space through their wave functions that they create a “solid” boundary, preventing other atoms from passing through.
You’ve Never Really Touched Anything
Here’s where things get even stranger. You’ve never actually touched anything in your life.
When you sit on a chair, your body isn’t truly in contact with it.
Instead, the electrons in the atoms of your body repel the electrons in the atoms of the chair.
This repulsion comes from the electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature.
What you perceive as “touch” is simply the electromagnetic force pushing back against you.
On an atomic level, you’re hovering ever so slightly above the surface, never truly making contact.
Think about that the next time you shake someone’s hand—you’re not touching them; you’re feeling the force of electrons keeping your atoms apart.
Is It Truly Empty?
If atoms are mostly empty space, does that mean space itself is empty? Not quite. In physics, “empty” doesn’t mean “nothing.”
The so-called empty space inside and between atoms is teeming with invisible forces and quantum fields.
For example, the quantum vacuum isn’t truly empty.
It’s filled with fluctuating energy fields and virtual particles that pop in and out of existence.
These quantum phenomena are fundamental to the structure of the universe, influencing everything from particle interactions to the expansion of space itself.
In this sense, “empty space” is anything but empty. It’s a dynamic, invisible framework that holds the universe together.
What Does This Mean for You?
Understanding the emptiness of atoms and the forces that govern them is more than a philosophical exercise—it has real-world implications.
- Revolutionizing Technology
Advances in quantum mechanics have already led to technologies like MRI machines, semiconductors, and quantum computing. As we learn more about the nature of matter, we could unlock new breakthroughs in energy, medicine, and materials science. - Perspective on Existence
Realizing that you’re mostly empty space held together by energy can be both humbling and awe-inspiring. It challenges us to rethink what it means to exist and what “substance” truly is. - Cosmic Insights
This understanding extends to the universe as a whole. Stars, planets, and galaxies are also composed of mostly empty space. Yet, these seemingly insubstantial structures create the vast, intricate cosmos we observe.
The Takeaway
You, your surroundings, and everything you’ve ever known are astonishingly insubstantial at an atomic level.
Yet, this “emptiness” is filled with energy, forces, and quantum phenomena that make our universe possible.
So the next time you admire your “substantial” self or marvel at the solidity of the world around you, remember: you’re a masterpiece of empty space and energy, held together by the mysterious forces of the universe.
And maybe, just maybe, that makes you more extraordinary than you ever imagined.
Would you like to dive deeper into the physics of matter or explore how quantum mechanics shapes our daily lives?
Let me know in the comments!
