Is there a perfect vacuum between atoms in space?

[saln1]

As the title states, if I go to space and detect several atoms per square meter of space, does this suggest that the space between these atoms is essentially void of all forms of matter? Thus is this a perfect vacuum?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Yes.

Of course the same thing is true on Earth - the space between atoms in the atmosphere is also vacuum.

 

[saln1]

Yes.

Of course the same thing is true on Earth - the space between atoms in the atmosphere is also vacuum.

So when I was told a perfect vacuum is impossible, I was told a lie?

 

[johng23]

There is no perfect vacuum because you can't obtain zero pressure. Pressure is a macroscopic quantity of course, it doesn't make sense to say that there is zero pressure between atoms. If you measure the pressure in space, it will not be zero because there are atoms present. If you specify a certain region and try to isolate it in some way while all the atoms are elsewhere, you can't do that...

 

[fatra2]

Hi there,

So when I was told a perfect vacuum is impossible, I was told a lie?

More or less. You have perfect vacuum at microscopic distance.

However, it is very hard, if not impossible to have a perfect vacuum of long distance.

That's it.

cheers

 

[DaveC426913]

The way we make vacuum on Earth is ostensibly to suck all the air out of a vessel. This is a misrepresentation. There is no such thing as suction.

What really happens is that the internal pressure of the vessel is caused by gaseous atoms bouncing around. When we open the valve and turn on the pump, most of those atoms (because they are bouncing off the walls and off each other) will ultimately fly up the tube and out.

Eventually though, the vessel will reach a very low pressure. The atoms are free to bounce around inside the vessel but they are no longer bouncing off each other. There is no reason why they will fly up the tube except by chance and patience.

The upshot is that you can never get those last few atoms out. The atoms per cubic metre will drop towards zero but never reach it in any reasonable time frame.

 

[JDługosz]

The upshot is that you can never get those last few atoms out. The atoms per cubic metre will drop towards zero but never reach it in any reasonable time frame.

So chill the walls. Next "bounce", the atom becomes frost.

Or, start with a solid with no gap, and introduce a gap by moving parts away from each other. This can be done easily with mercury, for example.

There are other ways of producing vacuum that don't have the same specific limitations.

 

[Dr Lots-o'watts]

Don't forget the constant flow of neutrons everywhere!

And randomly flying free electrons!

And muons!

And them virtual matter-antimetter pairs that spontaneously create themselves out of gamma rays and can cause Hawking radiation if they happen to appear at the event horizon of a black hole!

And more!...

There in no complete vaccum. But these examples, while matter, don't necessarily interact with atoms, so we can often overlook them.

 

[fatra2]

Hi there,

Alright, but what about all the space between the flowing neutrons, electrons, muons, and neutrinos. There is still a great amount of space left, and therefore, empty space left.

Cheers

 

[felure]

there is no empty space:
always keep in mind that energy equals mass (up to a constant).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy

 

[D H]

So chill the walls. Next "bounce", the atom becomes frost.

Or, start with a solid with no gap, and introduce a gap by moving parts away from each other. This can be done easily with mercury, for example.

There are other ways of producing vacuum that don't have the same specific limitations.

Read up on sublimation.

 

[ACPower]

Even when there are no particles in a space, there is still the chance that a 'vacuum fluctuation' will cause a particle and anti-particle pair to emerge spontaneously, with only one of them being in the volume under consideration.

 

[DaveC426913]

So chill the walls. Next "bounce", the atom becomes frost.

"The atom becomes frost??" I know you're playing fast & loose with physics here, so I'll roll with it, but how does a slower moving atom result in vacuum?

 

[Dr Lots-o'watts]

...how does a slower moving atom result in vacuum?

It sticks to the walls (the gas condenses) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryopump

 

[cragar]

we would also have the energy from the G field . And also i can't think of a place in space that you couldn't see a star . all tho their might be one .

 

[DaveC426913]

we would also have the energy from the G field . And also i can't think of a place in space that you couldn't see a star . all tho their might be one .

What does this have to do with the question being asked?

Oh, I got it now. Your comment presumes that the volume of interest need be energy-free.


No, a vacuum does not need to be free of energy; it need only be free of matter.

 

[adaptation]

I've been following this and I thought I was clear on the answer until I got to thinking...

What about the space in between virtual particles? I understand that they don't have a fixed position. I mean is there such a thing as a space so small it precludes the existence of virtual particles?

 

[JDługosz]

I mean is there such a thing as a space so small it precludes the existence of virtual particles?

No. See Casimir's force.

 

[adaptation]

No. See Casimir's force.

The Casimir effect is an energy effect. As mentioned earlier in this thread, a vacuum need not be devoid of energy, only matter. The Casimir effect, as I understand it, requires the presence of matter to be observed.

I'm considering a volume of spacetime that is too small for a virtual particle to "pop" into. If the Casimir effect forbids such a small volume from existing, could you please explain to me why. Thanks!

 

[Acut]

@Vanadium 50: Excellent point.

Don't forget there's empty space between the nucleus and the electrosphere too.
One of the most puzzling questions I've ever been asked was "According to Rutherford, atoms are big empty spaces. So even a wall is, mostly, space. Why can't we cross it?"

I think when someone who isn't a specialist talks about vacuum, he means "an empty macroscopically-sized space". If we stick to this meaning, then the perfect vacuum only exists between interstellar space - if, of course, it is not disturbed by all the particles previous posters have listed.

 

[macrylinda]

So chill the walls. Next "bounce", the atom becomes frost.

Or, start with a solid with no gap, and introduce a gap by moving parts away from each other. This can be done easily with mercury, for example.

There are other ways of producing vacuum that don't have the same specific limitations.

Don't forget the constant flow of neutrons everywhere!

And randomly flying free electrons!

And muons!

And them virtual matter-antimetter pairs that spontaneously create themselves out of gamma rays and can cause Hawking radiation if they happen to appear at the event horizon of a black hole!

And more!...

There in no complete vaccum. But these examples, while matter, don't necessarily interact with atoms, so we can often overlook them.

__________________
watch free movies online

 

[Xtensity]

There is never an empty vacuum because there exist elementary particles which are so small they can pass straight through any walls creating that vacuum.

 

[DaveC426913]

OK, couple of things.

Your 'don't forget' caveats are tantamount to suggesting it is impossible to completely empty a room of people, since there will always be people randomly walking into the room. Well, no. We don't have to count that...

Don't forget the constant flow of neutrons everywhere!

Unless you live inside a nuclear reactor, you shouldn' bre encountering too many flying neutrons...

Or did you mean neutrinos?

And randomly flying free electrons!

Beta radiation? Geez, I hope not.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I mean is there such a thing as a space so small it precludes the existence of virtual particles?

If I'm not mistaken, QFT postulates that particles are points and take up no space. So I don't think there is a volume of space so small that a particle couldn't be there. Quantum physics dissuades us from speaking of things we can't measure. Since you can't measure the number of virtual particles in a small volume of space, you aren't supposed to express knowledge of it. That is, you can't say whether there is a vacuum or not. Did I get that right, or am I missing something?

 

[cragar]

This is probably wrong so please correct me. Could we argue that the energy in a gravitational field is mass in a different form .

 

[adaptation]

If I'm not mistaken, QFT postulates that particles are points and take up no space. So I don't think there is a volume of space so small that a particle couldn't be there. Quantum physics dissuades us from speaking of things we can't measure. Since you can't measure the number of virtual particles in a small volume of space, you aren't supposed to express knowledge of it. That is, you can't say whether there is a vacuum or not. Did I get that right, or am I missing something?

Thanks for the response Jimmy Snyder. I've read about quantum particles being represented as point masses. I thought that it was a mathematic convenience similar to the way we use the center of mass in classical physics. Do quantum particles really take up no space?

Thinking about that small a volume of space-time lead me to quantized space-time. Looking at space-time that way, we could never have a volume of space small enough to be a perfect vacuum since there is a fundamental limit to how small a "piece" of space-time we can have. Is this a correct interpretation?

 

[Pythagorean]

Well... If you apply a big enough electric field to a vacuum, won't positron-electron pairs split out of space? What's getting "ionized"?

 

[brainstorm]

There is no perfect vacuum because you can't obtain zero pressure. Pressure is a macroscopic quantity of course, it doesn't make sense to say that there is zero pressure between atoms. If you measure the pressure in space, it will not be zero because there are atoms present. If you specify a certain region and try to isolate it in some way while all the atoms are elsewhere, you can't do that...

Isn't pressure due to the kinetic energy of particles surrounding the vacuum? Isn't a vacuum a relative state of potential energy to occupy the vacuum? If there is no pressure differential, how can you call it a "vacuum?" So, for example, the "vacuum" of outer space would only really be a vacuum insofar as there is a pressure differential with the pressurized compartment where the astronauts are. To a tank filled with compressed gas, the atmosphere is a relative vacuum, no?

 

[Pythagorean]

Well... If you apply a big enough electric field to a vacuum, won't positron-electron pairs split out of space? What's getting "ionized"?

A photon, of course, is what's getting ionized. Don't photons count as non-vacuum? I'd think they take up a lot of space. What about the probability function of an electron? Don't matter waves go on forever too (despite the distribution amplitude being insignificant?).

So is it really farfetched that there is a sort of amalgamate of low amplitude particle distribution permeating all space?

 

[DaveC426913]

A photon, of course, is what's getting ionized.

Photons can get ionized? I'd think atoms got ionized (lose/gain electrons).

Don't photons count as non-vacuum?

If that were true then you could never have a vacuum unless it were in complete darkness and at absolute zero.

I'm pretty sure any normal definiton of vacuum includes matter only.

 

[Naty1]

A definition of "vacuum" would clarify this discussion...

Wikipedia makes some good points here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum


In everyday usage, vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure... the classical notion of a perfect vacuum with gaseous pressure of exactly zero is only a philosophical concept and is never observed in practice. .

The quality of a vacuum refers to how closely it approaches a perfect vacuum... Quantum theory sets limits for the best possible quality of vacuum, predicting that no volume of space can be perfectly empty. Outer space and interstellar space are naturally occurring high quality vacuums, mostly of much higher quality than can be created artificially with current technology. ...

 

[mugaliens]

True - vacuum is defined as "the absense of matter," not the absence of energy.

Fermions ("matter"), however, include the six quarks, the six leptons (which include neutrinos, electrons, and muons), as well as the four bosons (which include photons, etc.)

Thus, the question becomes - is there anywhere in space actually devoid of matter (fermions)?

The answer is no. There is no place in the universe where a perfect vacuum can be achieved, as the universe is awash in a flood of photons and neutrinos, both of which constitute matter.

The next question is "can zero pressure ever be achieved anywhere in the universe?" and the answer to that question is also "no." Even in intergalactic space, there are ~ 10^-6 molecules per cm³, and that's about twelve orders of magnitude fewer than we can achieve here on Earth. But it is still a non-zero value, and there is still pressure exerted by those few molecules which remain.

Let's assume we had a widget which would sweep aside all fermions within a closed, non-sublimating container. Even then we would not have a perfect vacuum due to quantum fluctuation and the fact that for some of the pairs, one appears on one side of the boundary and the other appears on the other side of the boundary.

However, we could achieve a perfect vacuum if we could engineer a reverse black hole, a "white hole," with an event horizon greater than 0 above it's center. That would repel all matter of all types and render a perfect vacuum below its event horizon.

To date, however, studies have shown this to be an impossibility, so we're back to "no" for the answer "can a perfect vacuum ever be achieved, either by us or anywhere in the universe?"

No.

 

[Pythagorean]

Photons can get ionized? I'd think atoms got ionized (lose/gain electrons).



If that were true then you could never have a vacuum unless it were in complete darkness and at absolute zero.

I'm pretty sure any normal definiton of vacuum includes matter only.

In the previous post, I had quoted: "ionized" to illustrate that it was an analogy for charge separation (I was at a loss for the correct word: polarized).

Anyway, I was referring to a photon splitting into a positron-electron pair under a large potential difference. I guess then, that what this means to me, is that vacuum doesn't mean "empty space" or "nothing".

 

[JDługosz]

Fermions ("matter"), however, include the six quarks, the six leptons (which include neutrinos, electrons, and muons), as well as the four bosons (which include photons, etc.)

Thus, the question becomes - is there anywhere in space actually devoid of matter (fermions)?

I agree, you can't keep the neutrinos out. However, their total mass is very small, and they may not disturb your experiment.

 

[pavew]

I think I found the way to create perfect vacuum (no gas or any other atoms in container). By mining that I have found the theoretical, mechanical way, to isolate certain area of space. In practice, quality of vacuum would depend on materials used and achieved precision. Would creation of such device do any good for science? Is it worth anything making it?