CEO Essays 2020_04_06

The size of one hydrogen atom is known to be a sphere with a radius of approximately 53 pm (picometer, 12 zeros below the decimal point, 1/1,000,000,000,000 meter). In the middle of that, the atomic nucleus is floating in a size of 1fm (femtometer, 15 zeros below the decimal point, 1/1,000,000,000,000,000 meter), and approximately 1am (attometer, 18 zeros below the decimal point, 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000 meter) size of the electron is orbiting the atomic nucleus. So, literally, inside of the atom is empty! Let's visualize this hydrogen atom to a more familiar form. Expand hydrogen atom to the size of the Earth, then the atomic nucleus would be a 20-story building with a radius of 60 meters, in the center. An apple size of 6cm would be orbiting the building in the Earth-scale void.

As we don't comprehend what exactly this 'void' is, the knowledge so far about the hydrogen atom is primitive and rudimentary. Observing more closely into the atomic nucleus and electron increases more uncertainty to conducting the observation, in other words, it worsens the observation precision to infinite, so its shape of observation gets more peculiar. This is the principle of Heisenberg's uncertainty.

Singularity makes this problem more difficult. Gravity and electric force become stronger in proportion to the square of the distance, as objects get more closer. When the distance between objects is 0, the force between them becomes infinity. Anyone could understand that there is something wrong in the formula of Newton's universal gravitation and
Coulomb's electric force formula.

Contemporary physics has no way of comprehending what would happen in space-time of less than 4.05 x 10-35m, the Planck space, and less than 1.35 x 10-43s, the Planck time.

Because of this, physics has reached its limit in explaining with particles smaller than the atomic nucleus and brought up 'string theory' as a breakthrough. String theory was to overcome the problems of particle-centered 'dot' physics, unsolvable infinite force and contradiction of uncertainty, with a flexible, vibrating 'string', which could become electrons, protons, and quarks upon its unique movement. This was the so-called "TOE-Theory Of Everything".

It was meant to be the 'Theory of Everything', however, string theory has a very distinct limitation compared to particle theory. Scientists who support string theory assume the size of a string as 10-35m, which is hiding somewhere in multi-dimension space, as shown in the figure above. Reminding that the atomic nucleus of hydrogen atom is 10-15m, 1fm, a string is impossible to prove scientifically nor to conduct the observation. It is a mere mathematical hypothesis.

On the left side, there are diagrams which show the atom, the proton within the atom, quarks within the proton, and gluons which connects quarks. The figure in the middle shows how these particles are combined with electric force, strong force, weak force, and graviton(even with Giggs particle, which was the most controversial particle in 2012), to become the string model, the ultimate one. The figure on the right side is the basic form of the quantum theory. People expected that going in the deeper, the more void and vacuum there would be, however, even in that space-time, things are severely distorted in it, and particles are constantly generated and annihilated.

This is what the inside of an empty atom looks like. It is said that anti-particles are hiding in it.

Still, the inside of the atom is a world of unanswered, mysterious, awaiting the challenges of the youth.

What makes this mysterious world more mysterious is gravity and mass.