re: Do you believe in the Fermi Paradox: The Great Filter?

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At the quantum level the space between the sub-atomic particles that make up matter is enormous compared to the particles themselves so theoretically the particles making up two cars could pass each other in opposite directions without the particles colliding.

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Albeit the probability is very low but still exist. Just ask Schrodinger.

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The fact that 2 cars can theoretically hit head-on but go right through each other without touching

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At the quantum level the space between the sub-atomic particles that make up matter is enormous compared to the particles themselves so theoretically the particles making up two cars could pass each other in opposite directions without the particles colliding.

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I’d say you’re in the right church, but you’re sitting at the wrong pew.

At the atomic level atoms are mostly empty space (more on that in a bit). If you were to expand an atomic nuclei to the size of a quarter, then the elections would be miles away from the quarter. But the “binding forces” prevent us from passing through walls or anything like that.



Quantum physics has more to do with the behavior of the fundamental particles and how they interact with each other. The idea that something can pass through something else comes from quantum tunneling- to understand how that works you need to understand that these fundamentals have a wave-like component. So think of an electron not as a particular object in space, but rather a “wave of energy.” And just like waves in the ocean, they don’t exist at one point, but rather spread out. Once we start talking about spaces smaller than the width of that wave, then tunneling starts to occur... but this only happens on the extremely small scale like in microprocessors where we’re concerned with the flow of electrons. At larger scales the “normal” forces of physics take over.

As an example of things passing through other things - Neutrinos actually have such little “mass” that their “wave” is incredibly small even compared to subatomic particles. They are very real particles but they interact with other particles so little that you have about 100 trillion passing through your body every second, but they never “touch” the atoms that make up our body.


That’s my best quasi-drunk explanation in layman’s terms.


If you really want to blow your mind, think about how in even empty space, the quantum world is constantly creating and destroy particles out of nothing. This isn’t some crazy theoretical thought, we can actually measure the force created by these very short lived particles.