I was walking along the other day after a class about mathematical modelling of biomolecules and was suddenly struck by the thought that space doesn't really ev

I was walking along the other day after a class about mathematical modelling of biomolecules and was suddenly struck by the thought that space doesn't really even exist. This came from the observation that when we calculate van der Waals interactions there are two terms [0] and the term raised to the 12th power is an approximation to account for the fact that down at the quantum level two electrons cannot occupy the same orbital. We can map electron orbitals onto space but then we get something funky like the Pauli exclusion principle and suddenly a force that appears to be 'spatial' in origin is now a consequence of a completely non-spatial phenomenon. We use space as a convenient intermediate in many measurements but it is not clear to me that the fundamental accounting system of the universe actually needs it (though as the article points out, general relativity seems to suggest that space-time does exist or at least provides a pretty reliable coordinate system). 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennard-Jones_potential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennard-Jones_potential