I'm wondering if this visualization makes sense with the definition of the empty string . I suppose it does because it doesn't seem to contradict its definition ( is a string with no characters).If that's the case, in finite state machines with empty transitions, is it always possible to assume  is before the character a that should be read next, and take the empty transition instead?If the next state also has an empty transition to another state, can I assume  is before a again, even though the automata had just consumed  in the last operation? In other words, can I assume there is an indefinite number of empty strings between any two characters in a string in a regular language?
Is the empty string  in regular languages implicitly between any two characters in a string?
regular languages;finite automata