> I thought one of the central ideas of quantum mechanics is that space is discrete? Or am I misunderstanding what the Planck length is?
Yes, that is a misunderstanding. The fundamental idea of quantum mechanics is that certain properties of matter are quantized, but space is not one of them - they are spin, charge, electroweak charge, color charge, and perhaps a few others.
Space and time though are continuous. Planck's length comes in when we discuss the maximum precision that can be measured, as it's related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (and to other fundamental concepts, such as c or even black holes). So, the Planck length is the smallest unit of distance that can be meaningfully discussed, but that doesn't mean that distance between particles is an integer multiple of the Planck length.
Wow I had no idea that was the case I had the same misunderstanding as the other posted. Thank you for that, I will be revisiting my understanding of time and space
Yes, that is a misunderstanding. The fundamental idea of quantum mechanics is that certain properties of matter are quantized, but space is not one of them - they are spin, charge, electroweak charge, color charge, and perhaps a few others.
Space and time though are continuous. Planck's length comes in when we discuss the maximum precision that can be measured, as it's related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (and to other fundamental concepts, such as c or even black holes). So, the Planck length is the smallest unit of distance that can be meaningfully discussed, but that doesn't mean that distance between particles is an integer multiple of the Planck length.