From the Editor's Desk

The idea that matter is mostly empty space is mostly wrong

One thing you can be sure of, as you measure and observe the Universe around you, is this: the physical objects you see, touch, and otherwise interact with all occupy a volume of space. Whether in the form of solid, liquid, gas, or any other phase of matter, it costs energy in order to reduce the volume that any tangible material occupies, as though the very components of matter themselves are capable of resisting the impetus to occupy a smaller amount of three-dimensional space.

And yet, seemingly paradoxically, the fundamental constituents of matter — the particles of the Standard Model — occupy no measurable volume at all; they’re simply point particles. So how, then, can substances made out of volume-less entities come to occupy space at all, creating the world and Universe as we observe it? That’s what Pete Sand is curious about, asking:

Continued here

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