The world that surrounds us is filled with all sorts of stuff. Proper vacuum must be laboriously prepared at great expense ; in the wild, there is almost never - not more than in the intergalactic wasteland where found only about one atom per square meter. Otherwise, it abounds everywhere of matter - be it mere air. Before the emergence of the universe did not exist - neither space nor matter - and then suddenly it was something. A more radical change than from nothing to something, you can imagine. And one wonders at times - what is all around me exactly? What is the Kantian thing in itself ? Well, that depends on who you ask.
If you ask the scientist, he would give no answer: It always has been asked what would happen if things ever further divided. The philosopher Democritus it dawned that the process would eventually stop, and he postulated from the sleeves out a basic element that could not be further divided, and called it atomos , the "Unzer cutable. Two millennia later, turned out experimentally : So unzerschneidbar the atoms were not: they had a core and a shell. The core of "collapsed" and continue into protons and neutrons, these later in quarks. But now you've found the ultimate, indivisible elementary particles, it was thought. But no, they are now after the string theory of small vibrating "strings" exist, the length is much about the smaller than a speck of dust, as this is smaller than the entire universe . Since these are so tiny, can also be described mathematically only in a room with eleven dimensions, and the man simply can not imagine this, the strings to help with the question of clarity further. As well as general information in quantum physics applies here: the smaller the object, the less his behavior and "appearance" with the common sense to do. We are simply too limited to understand what matter is "really".
If you ask the nihilists, he would say nothing. And he is right - because the atoms are to largely of empty space. Which is located in the center of the nucleus surrounded by electrons, and between them is - a gaping void! After a common size comparison would be a nucleus the size of a pinhead to cover the size of a football field. It is difficult to convince yourself that the hammer with which you have just cut to the thumb, largely consists of nothing, but it is so.
If you ask the pessimists, he might reply: From waste. And that's - bleak worldview provided - not to be dismissed out of hand. For the Big Bang created matter and antimatter - as if everything received a very strange, both would annihilate on contact with each other according to the normal course of events. The universe would hardly emerged spectacularly dissolve in a sea of light. For some mysterious reason it was accidental but a bit more matter than antimatter . The fireworks burnt up so not complete, there remained a few remnants, fragments and clumps, which has since haunted the room. This residual item now form the visible universe. Cosmic waste, unused ammunition for the party at the beginning of the luminous being.
And so would Kant's question after the "thing in itself", two centuries later does not really become smarter than before. And since you are a nobody in the full sense of that word figuratively can not imagine anyway (because as we also need to think away themselves, the viewer), it is the matter, whatever "is" on you, only as necessary to be grateful. Unless you get flat skin with the hammer thumb.
