Do modern scientists believe that matter actually occupies space, or is mass is simply a property of waves?

Question

From my limited mathematical perspective it seems that 'mass' should just be another dimension or variable property associated with wave quanta. You know, a photon has zero mass, an electron has 9.11 × 10-31 kg of mass, a proton 1.6726 × 10−27 kg, etc.

Is there any real expiremental evidence that subatomic particles actually 'occupy' space, i.e. have length, radii, density or any of these other properties we consider of objects 'occupying space' at a macroscopic level.

If the answer is no, is the occupation of space just an illusion used to facilite understanding and interpretation of macroscopic interactions, or do we view the combined wave interactions of subatomic particles into atoms as an impenetrable occupation of space, though the atomic constituents are 'spaceless'?

Philisophically I'm fine in any direction, it's just a question I've never seen explicitly asked and answered anywhere.

Answer 1

Matter as we know it can be described by wave mechanics, which again leads to some consequences that we experience in our daily life.

The Pauli exclusion principle states that two electrons (as well as protons and neutrons and everything else with spin 1/2) cannot occupy the same set of quantum numbers in the same volum of space. From this follows that an atom can occupy space in the meaning that it is not available to other atoms.

The same hold for any of the electrons, protons and neutrons an atom is made of. However, each electron, proton and neutron in an atom has different sets of quantum numbers, hence the volumes they occupy overlap. But they will block space for a similar particle numbers from another atom which has the same quantum number. It will occupy space only in the sense that it is unavaliable its kind, but not for anyone else.

It is a bit like bying a house and make it unavailable for other people. You may still be prepared to accept light, bad feelings, air, microbes, mice and policemen to enter your house.

Which should answer your question without involving any philosophy.

Everything that does not have a spin of 1/2 does not follow the Pauli exclusion principle and can share the same volum of space without problems. This includes any kind of energy, radiation, and several different particles. More fascinating is that atomic matter can turn into matter that does not follow Pauli, as in the famous Boise-Einstein condensate where wave functions of extremely cold atoms coalesce.

Answer 2

The Heartland Institute are a joke they don't seem able to put forward anything that dosen't fall to pieces whether it is this list ~10% within 24 hours of its release saying they new nothing about being on the list sounds much like the Oregon Petition which used a similar tactic. This is Heartland Institute stock & trade the conference they held in New York recently claimed several hundred scientists but turned out to have only a handfull and they had been paid to attend.

Answer 3

In my own Fractal Foam Model of Universes, everything in our universe consists of waves in the cosmic foam of a sub-universe, which is the ether foam of our universe. Then there is a sub-sub-universe and so on to infinity. So there is no finite volume of space which contains nothing; but everything is just a ripple in the fabric of something else.