Density. Ultimately everything is made of the same quarks, but there may be more atoms per cubic centimeter in some materials vs others (think water vs steam - water is the same molecules packed much more tightly). And on top of that, some atoms just have more protons and neutrons in them - gold has an atomic mass of ~197, while copper is only ~63. So an atom of gold takes up roughly the same space as an atom of copper at a large enough scale, but has over 3x the mass.
Well… Empty empty, I don’t think so; think about the whole issue of vacuum energy and the consequent virtual particle-antiparticle pairs, or the mere fact of the existence of quantum fields that permeate everything — like the field responsible for mass itself, the Higgs field.
That’s a simplification; a useful one, but a simplification nonetheless.
Density. Ultimately everything is made of the same quarks, but there may be more atoms per cubic centimeter in some materials vs others (think water vs steam - water is the same molecules packed much more tightly). And on top of that, some atoms just have more protons and neutrons in them - gold has an atomic mass of ~197, while copper is only ~63. So an atom of gold takes up roughly the same space as an atom of copper at a large enough scale, but has over 3x the mass.
Also, an atom is mostly empty space. So there’s lots of room for an atom to increase its number protons/neutrons without increasing its size.
At that scale what is and isn’t “empty space” gets a little hazy.
If you zoom in far enough, there’s always some bullshit going on.
Well… Empty empty, I don’t think so; think about the whole issue of vacuum energy and the consequent virtual particle-antiparticle pairs, or the mere fact of the existence of quantum fields that permeate everything — like the field responsible for mass itself, the Higgs field.
That’s a simplification; a useful one, but a simplification nonetheless.
It seems so simple, but it’s pretty damn crazy when you think about it for more than like a second or two.
I’m on ten seconds of thought now and I am FREAKING OUT
You should write a song about it, it would be a great hit.