L.E.D. (spoiler 200+)

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Stephen Deng writes:
> This passage could refer to fractals, but it sounds more like atoms to me. 
>  The missing piece of information is whether these patterns look exactly 
> like the macro version, which at least from your quotes (I haven't yet 
> gotten to this part), seems not to be there.  The amazing aspect of an atom 
> is that it is made up of mostly nothingness, like the bread.  Subatomic 
> particles are sparse, yet their "probabilistic" properties miraculously 
> provide density to matter.

Sorry, but this is just claptrap.

Firstly, any talk about atoms and the space between them makes the
mistake of ascribing macro properties like density and solidity to
micro entities for which the terms patently have no pre-defined
meaning. Subatomic particles certainly have location and maybe one can
define some notion of extent based on their wave functions but you
cannot really say that such a particle occupies one part of space and
not another.

Secondly, even if you provide some way of isolating a subset of space
within which a particle is *most likely* to be located and thereby
divide space at the atomic level into that `occupied' by the particle
and that not `occupied', to say that the remaining space is empty in
the same way as a gap between two house bricks is empty is to conflate
different senses of the word. A brick fills a rectangular space in the
only way in whch anything can fill such space and satisfies all the
criteria needed to decide that the space is filled. To suggest that it
does not really fill the space because according to your pet theory
about atomic particles you can divide up the space within the brick
into bits containing particles and bits not containing particles is
not to identify some new property of space of which we were not
previously aware but to redefine the notions `empty' and `fill'. Well,
I don't see any benefit from such a redefinition. Worse this is an
abuse of existing terminology whose only benefit can be to cause
confusion (philosophical and scientific).


Andrew Dinn
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And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.