The Boy's Playbook of Science / Including the Various Manipulations and Arrangements of Chemical and Philosophical Apparatus Required for the Successful Performance of Scientific Experiments in Illustration of the Elementary Branches of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy

by John Henry Pepper

Fig. 1.

Here we seem to have a direct contradiction of the simple and indisputable truth, that "two things cannot occupy the same space at once." But let us proceed with our experiments:—

We have now a flask full of water, and taking some very finely-powdered sugar, it is easy to introduce a notable quantity of that substance without increasing the bulk of the water; the only precaution necessary, is not to allow the sugar to fall into the flask in a mass, but to drop it in grain by grain, and very slowly, allowing time for the air-bubbles (which will cling to the particles of sugar) to pass off, and for the sugar to dissolve. Matter, in the experiments adduced, appears to be penetrable, and the property of impenetrability seems only to be a creation of fancy: reason, however, enables us to say that the latter is not the case.

Fig. 2.

A nail may certainly be hammered into wood, but the particles are thrust aside to allow it to enter. Cotton wool may be placed in spirits of wine because it is simply greatly extended and bulky matter, which, if compressed, might only occupy the space of the kernel of a nut, and if this were dropped into a half-pint measure full of alcohol, the increase of bulk would not cause the spirit to overflow. The cotton-wool experiment is therefore no contradiction of impenetrability. The experiment with the sugar is the most troublesome opponent to our term, and obliges us to amend and qualify the original definition, and say, that the ultimate or smallest particles or atoms of bodies only are impenetrable; and we may believe they are not in close contact with each other, because certain bulks of sugar and water occupy more space separately than when mixed.

Fig. 3.

If we compare the flask of water to a flask full of marbles, and the sugar to some rape-seed, it will be evident that we may almost pour another flask full of the latter amongst the marbles, because they are not in close contact with each other, but have spaces between them; and after pouring in the rape-seed, we might still find room for some fine sand.

The particles of one body may thus enter into the spaces left between those of another without increasing its volume; and hence, as has been before stated, "The atoms only of bodies are truly impenetrable."