>What I find astounding is it’s pretty much similar to atoms which are mostly empty space.
Yes indeed. Here’s a question which I’ve never gotten a satisfactory answer to...
If the speed of light in a vacuum is the constant c, and the vacuum of space is pretty much “lumpy emptiness”, IE, lots of nothing mixed with the occasional solar system or galaxy, and, at an atomic level the “space” inside matter is pretty much the same thing, how come the “nothingness” inside a chunk of glass does not act like a vacuum to a photon instead of making it slow down by some percentage of c ?
It’s a God thing.
What do you mean, but how light bends in glass? I don’t know if it slows down though, I guess it would though if it bends as it would have to take that extra time to go in a different direction, but yeah physics is pretty nutty. I remember reading one time that if it wasn’t for electromagnetic force matter would pass through each other, everybody would be able to walk through one another as atoms are mostly empty space. If you jumped off a building the ground wouldn’t stop you, you would just fall through the earth and keep on going. In other words it’s not the gravity that kills someone when they fall it’s the electromagnetic force. I have no idea how that works at all.