Just did a Bing on that question and the first hit was:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/what-is-the-fabric-of-space-made-of.282203/

The responses can be divided into two roughly equal groups:

1) (first response): The “fabric of space” is not made 0f anything- it is just space itself. No, space did not exist before the big bang, yes, it was created, along with everything else.

2) (slightly paraphrased) but, but, it’s gotta be made of something.

I didn’t read the whole 9 page discussion, but I didn’t see anyone from Group 1 provide any meaningful justification for their position.

I did however find this quote interesting:

“It would have been more correct if I had limited myself, in my earlier publications, to emphasizing only the nonexistence of an ether velocity, instead of arguing the total nonexistence of the ether, for I can see that with the word ether we say nothing else than that space has to be viewed as a carrier of physical qualities.” A. Einstein

I didn’t know Einstein had said anything like that.

Just really posting this because I thought the Einstein quote was really interesting, but if any members of group 1 here have any observational or philosophical evidence to back up this position, I’d be glad to see it.

It is interesting if nothing is made up of something, isn’t space comprised of vacuum and or zero point energy if nothing else

“It would have been more correct if I had limited myself, in my earlier publications, to emphasizing only the nonexistence of an ether velocity, instead of arguing the total nonexistence of the ether, for I can see that with the word ether we say nothing else than that space has to be viewed as a carrier of physical qualities.” A. Einstein

It’s an area, made an area by interacting forces, which includes possibility space. .

Space could be made up of something just not very much of something.

The fabric of space time is a human construct, it is not made of anything… it is simply a means to locate objects/events.

This should not to be confused with the question of what occupies this particular coordinate system (which of course is energy and matter).

I think most aether theories rely on a feeling of familiarity or convenience in that “surely physical mechanisms require a physical medium in which to propagate” (it’s largely a consequence of the wave properties of light), but this, to me, just seems an unnecessary complication (by-and-large solved by wave-particle duality).

I think you will find that Einstein’s particular interpretation of an aether is different to the way in which the term had previously been used and as such it never really gained any traction.

diddly-squat said:

The fabric of space time is a human construct, it is not made of anything… it is simply a means to locate objects/events.

See that’s what people say, but there is never any reason given to justify this stance, and it seems to be different to that taken by at least some well respected physicists, not just Albert.

The Rev Dodgson said:

diddly-squat said:

The fabric of space time is a human construct, it is not made of anything… it is simply a means to locate objects/events.

See that’s what people say, but there is never any reason given to justify this stance, and it seems to be different to that taken by at least some well respected physicists, not just Albert.

Space time is only relevant when discussing special relativity… it’s not a real physical thing, it’s a construct of the maths itself… that’s it…

It may turn out that a unified special relativity/quantum style TOE doesn’t need a space time, but even that doesn’t change the fact that we are talking about two very different things… that is, what physically is space made up of (if anything) and what we use to model our physical reality.

To me the physical interpretation is essentially meaningless because it’s only through the maths that we can make predictions anyway…

>The fabric of space time is a human construct, it is not made of anything… it is simply a means to locate objects/events.

probably distorts it off the bat by calling it fabric.

certainly that it tries the limits of the work of minds, and variously representations by machines (say computers) shouldn’t result in the conclusion it’s a nothing, but an anything is not entirely the same proposition.

the space is where mass may exist and forces interact, former in fact made so by the latter (historically>present).

no less so by growing vastness (hints expansion) and diminishing forces such as gravity and light/heat, like out there that makes space travel possible, that satellites or whatever might travel mass to mass (planets etc).

in the dumbest sense space is where gravity does/can exist. Heat too, and they’re everywhere really.

Does the aether inform anything of reality, I suspect it does.

spacecraft, not satellites, should have said

The Rev Dodgson said:

Just did a Bing on that question and the first hit was:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/what-is-the-fabric-of-space-made-of.282203/

The responses can be divided into two roughly equal groups:

1) (first response): The “fabric of space” is not made 0f anything- it is just space itself. No, space did not exist before the big bang, yes, it was created, along with everything else.

2) (slightly paraphrased) but, but, it’s gotta be made of something.

I didn’t read the whole 9 page discussion, but I didn’t see anyone from Group 1 provide any meaningful justification for their position.

I did however find this quote interesting:

“It would have been more correct if I had limited myself, in my earlier publications, to emphasizing only the nonexistence of an ether velocity, instead of arguing the total nonexistence of the ether, for I can see that with the word ether we say nothing else than that space has to be viewed as a carrier of physical qualities.” A. Einstein

I didn’t know Einstein had said anything like that.

Just really posting this because I thought the Einstein quote was really interesting, but if any members of group 1 here have any observational or philosophical evidence to back up this position, I’d be glad to see it.

So many different ways to answer this!

According to Unruh, the fabric of space exists and it is composed of pure mathematics. Not a widely held view.

General Relativity can be formulated with several different treatments of the “fabric of space”. Apart from the standard one (a curved infinite 3-D surface in 4-D), I’ve seen two other formulations. One is where space is quantised at the Planck scale (a la quantum mechanics).

The other is where space is … it’s hard to put this into words … “affine” is the word I’m trying to find. In geometry, an affine space contains a function which preserves points, straight lines and planes. Parallel lines remain parallel after an affine transformation. A square and a parallelogram are identical in affine space. Quoting form the wikipedia article “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schild%27s_ladder”, In the theory of general relativity, and differential geometry more generally, Schild’s ladder is a first-order method for approximating parallel transport of a vector along a curve using only affinely parametrized geodesics. The method is named for Alfred Schild, who introduced the method during lectures at Princeton University. In this formulation, space is made up of geodesics along which is marked a time parameter.

Before leaving pure GR, I want to note that there is a “conservation of space” law very similar to the better known “conservation of mass-energy” and “conservation of momentum”.

Then there’s space in QM, the “quantum foam” of virtual particles popping into and out of existence.

Now to two interpretations of space from TOEs.

In M-theory, space consists of three dimensional Branes that swim through higher dimensional geometries.

In Causal-Dynamical-Triangulation there is only one space and one time dimension, but the space dimension folds back on itself in such a way as to simulate three dimensional space. Perhaps it’s easiest to approximately visualise this using a Peano Curve. A Peano Curve is one-dimensional but folds back on itself to simulate two dimensions. Or in the image below, three dimensions.

diddly-squat said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

diddly-squat said:

The fabric of space time is a human construct, it is not made of anything… it is simply a means to locate objects/events.

See that’s what people say, but there is never any reason given to justify this stance, and it seems to be different to that taken by at least some well respected physicists, not just Albert.

Space time is only relevant when discussing special relativity… it’s not a real physical thing, it’s a construct of the maths itself… that’s it…

It may turn out that a unified special relativity/quantum style TOE doesn’t need a space time, but even that doesn’t change the fact that we are talking about two very different things… that is, what physically is space made up of (if anything) and what we use to model our physical reality.

To me the physical interpretation is essentially meaningless because it’s only through the maths that we can make predictions anyway…

Physics uses maths to make predictions about how things behave. That’s what physics is, physical interpretation.

Space is machine-washable without any apparent shrinkage and never needs ironing, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the fabric involved is a trade secret.

The Rev Dodgson said:

diddly-squat said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

See that’s what people say, but there is never any reason given to justify this stance, and it seems to be different to that taken by at least some well respected physicists, not just Albert.

Space time is only relevant when discussing special relativity… it’s not a real physical thing, it’s a construct of the maths itself… that’s it…

It may turn out that a unified special relativity/quantum style TOE doesn’t need a space time, but even that doesn’t change the fact that we are talking about two very different things… that is, what physically is space made up of (if anything) and what we use to model our physical reality.

To me the physical interpretation is essentially meaningless because it’s only through the maths that we can make predictions anyway…

Physics uses maths to make predictions about how things behave. That’s what physics is, physical interpretation.

Let me choose my words more carefully… To me the physical reality is essentially meaningless (for all we know forces may be mediated by space pixies)

Bubblecar said:

Space is machine-washable without any apparent shrinkage and never needs ironing, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the fabric involved is a trade secret.

It keeps expanding so the fabric must be capable of very large or possibly infinite “stretch”

Bubblecar said:

Space is machine-washable without any apparent shrinkage and never needs ironing, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the fabric involved is a trade secret.

>so it wouldn’t surprise me if the fabric involved is a trade secret.

gravity’s a trade secret too, without which the clothes and machine’d float away, in fact washing clothes’d be an entirely different thing, if you existed.

Realistically, space seems to be a consequence of the fact that the matter we observe isn’t infinitely dense.

What are the properties of space that we know about?

It was created by the big bang.

Space exists within the universe, just as galaxies are withing the universe.

Space could be either Infinite or finite

It can contain things like galaxies, black holes, stars, planets. atomic particles

Space has a relationship with Time

Space is three dimensional

Every point in space can support different vibrations across the frequency spectrum

Objects like galaxies or stars can move around in space

Space can carry radio waves, electromagnetic energy, gravity, weak and strong forces

Space can have different objects like atomic particles or black holes that exist in different places that have different gravities which can attract or repel

Space itself appears to be transparent, like the atmosphere made of transparent gas

Space allows us perceive things in it and space allows us to think in it.

Some questions

Are there more properties of space?

Is quantum foam the fabric of space time?

Is space another state of matter we don’t know about?

Is Space still being created by the expansion of the universe?

Is the expansion of the universe effecting other universes if they exist and are they all expanding?

Can space stretch and contract and does quantum foam have anything to do with that?

If space is expanding then what is creating it? More quantum foam?

If space is expanding and has a red shift effect on light and gravity waves, is quantum foam also effected?

Space definition from wiki

Space

This article is about the general framework of distance and direction. For the space beyond Earth’s atmosphere, see Outer space. For the keyboard key, see Space bar. For other uses, see Space (disambiguation).

A right-handed three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system used to indicate positions in space.

Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe. However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework.

more…

diddly-squat said:

Let me choose my words more carefully… To me the physical reality is essentially meaningless (for all we know forces may be mediated by space pixies)

Reality in physics means reality as we observe it, which is not meaningless at all. Neither is it just a mathematical abstraction.

Things are real (in the physics sense) if they have observable effects.

Space has observable effects, therefore it is a real thing.

Physicists are happy to talk about the expansion of space, and the curvature of space. Why don’t they want to discuss what it is made of?

The Rev Dodgson said:

diddly-squat said:

Let me choose my words more carefully… To me the physical reality is essentially meaningless (for all we know forces may be mediated by space pixies)

Reality in physics means reality as we observe it, which is not meaningless at all. Neither is it just a mathematical abstraction.

Things are real (in the physics sense) if they have observable effects.

Space has observable effects, therefore it is a real thing.

Physicists are happy to talk about the expansion of space, and the curvature of space. Why don’t they want to discuss what it is made of?

Perhaps it’s too hard as we have no idea what its made off, perhaps to quantify it requires mathematics that mess up our current theories

If the fabric of space isn’t nothing could it be the missing mass of the universe we are looking for

The Rev Dodgson said:

diddly-squat said:

Let me choose my words more carefully… To me the physical reality is essentially meaningless (for all we know forces may be mediated by space pixies)

Reality in physics means reality as we observe it, which is not meaningless at all. Neither is it just a mathematical abstraction.

Things are real (in the physics sense) if they have observable effects.

Space has observable effects, therefore it is a real thing.

Physicists are happy to talk about the expansion of space, and the curvature of space. Why don’t they want to discuss what it is made of?

I don’t agree with your premise because as far as I can see the true mechanisms that underlie physical process are, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant…

for instance, it doesn’t matter how quantum effects are truly mediated (be it a Higgs field or space pixies), it only matters that our models agree with observations

ant further toy your point, space has no observable effects… we observe masses and light and from that make inferences about the nature of how these things interact – it just so happens that our current theory suggests that these things (energy and mass) affect the way in which they (energy and mass) move through space and time.

diddly-squat said:

ant further toy your point, space has no observable effects…

The effects of space on light and matter are every bit as observable as any other interaction.

In what sense are they not observable?

Cymek said:

If the fabric of space isn’t nothing could it be the missing mass of the universe we are looking for

It seems to me that that possibility is at least worth investigation.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Physicists are happy to talk about the expansion of space, and the curvature of space. Why don’t they want to discuss what it is made of?

You quite often find them discussing quantum foam:

>Empty space—that is, space that contains nothing—no energy, no charge, no matter, nothing—is filled with a writhing, active population of virtual particles that physicists call “the quantum foam,” with bubbles appearing and popping in wild abandon. At the subatomic level, space is never truly empty.

You’d think that if empty space were filled with a constant roiling boil of quantum activity, you’d see it. The fact that you don’t could give you yet more reason to disbelieve, yet the effects of the quantum foam have been directly observed.

The first observation of the quantum foam came from tiny disturbances in the energy levels of the electron in a hydrogen atom. A second effect was predicted in 1947 by Hendrik Casimir and Dirk Polder. If the quantum foam was real, they reasoned, then the particles should exist everywhere in space. Further, since particles also have a wave nature, there should be waves everywhere. So what they imagined was to have two parallel metal plates, placed near one another. The quantum foam would exist both between the plates and outside of them. But because the plates were placed near one another, only short waves could exist between the plates, while short and long wavelength waves could exist outside them. Because of this imbalance, the excess of waves outside the plates should overpower the smaller number of waves between them, pushing the two plates together. Thirty years after it was first predicted, this effect was observed qualitatively. It was measured accurately in 1997.

Quantum foam also has astrophysical implications. In 1974, Stephen Hawking was thinking about quantum mechanics and black holes. He realized that the quantum foam would exist near the event horizon of the black hole. If an electron/positron virtual pair popped into existence just outside the event horizon, one of the two particles might spiral down and get trapped in the black hole, while the other would escape. As it happens, more energy would escape than be captured, so the energy of the black hole would get slightly smaller. Over the eons, this “Hawking Radiation” would cause the black hole to evaporate until it totally disappeared.

Virtual particles and the quantum foam are one of the craziest of the quantum phenomena. They have no classical analog and they certainly seem like something that physicists dreamed up to save the counterintuitive world of quantum mechanics. Borrowing from the movie “The Maltese Falcon,” quantum mechanics is said to be the dreams that stuff is made of, but virtual particles are no dreams. They have been experimentally observed, and indeed it could be that a quantum fluctuation similar to virtual particles was the thing that pulled the trigger on the creation of the universe itself: a crazy start for a universe where, we’re learning, the bizarre is the norm and dreams are reality.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2012/10/quantum-foam-virtual-particles-and-other-curiosities/

The Rev Dodgson said:

diddly-squat said:

ant further toy your point, space has no observable effects…

The effects of space on light and matter are every bit as observable as any other interaction.

In what sense are they not observable?

we observe light and mass doing weird things and we interpret that as a result of changes to space time…

we don’t observe space time per se

Cymek said:

If the fabric of space isn’t nothing could it be the missing mass of the universe we are looking for

If space is another state of matter, then yes it could be the missing mass we are looking for,

so is space

1 another state of matter

2 quantum foam

3 nothing

4 or something else

Tau.Neutrino said:

Cymek said:

If the fabric of space isn’t nothing could it be the missing mass of the universe we are looking for

If space is another state of matter, then yes it could be the missing mass we are looking for,

so is space

1 another state of matter

2 quantum foam

3 nothing

4 or something else

sorry questions 1 to 4 should have question marks

People should talk more about properties of space.

How many properties of space are there?

Is space spooky matter?

Tau.Neutrino said:

People should talk more about properties of space.

How many properties of space are there?

a ‘space’ doesn’t have properties so much as it has dimensions

for instance the space of general relativity is 4 dimensional and infinite in extent in all but one direction (that is time heading back to the BB).

diddly-squat said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

People should talk more about properties of space.

How many properties of space are there?

a ‘space’ doesn’t have properties so much as it has dimensions

for instance the space of general relativity is 4 dimensional and infinite in extent in all but one direction (that is time heading back to the BB).

Haven’t you just defined four properties of space?

1 4 dimensional
2 Infinite
3 Direction
4 Big bang to now

If space can expand or contract is that also property of space?

Tau.Neutrino said:

diddly-squat said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

People should talk more about properties of space.

How many properties of space are there?

a ‘space’ doesn’t have properties so much as it has dimensions

for instance the space of general relativity is 4 dimensional and infinite in extent in all but one direction (that is time heading back to the BB).

Haven’t you just defined four properties of space?

1 4 dimensional
2 Infinite
3 Direction
4 Big bang to now

If space can expand or contract is that also property of space?

sorry three properties

1 4 dimensional
2 Infinite
3 Big bang to now

I see now you mean direction as into the past, or from the BB to the present

I see dimensions of space as a property of space.

If the quantum plank limit is the smallest point in space, what is its opposite? the expanding universe?

Does the expanding universe have a gravity wave associated with it, like the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation? Would this be the largest wave is space?

Tau.Neutrino said:

If the quantum plank limit is the smallest point in space, what is its opposite? the expanding universe?

Does the expanding universe have a gravity wave associated with it, like the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation? Would this be the largest wave is space?

Was that the one they were trying to find but it turned out to be noise?

Tau.Neutrino said:

If the quantum plank limit is the smallest point in space, what is its opposite? the expanding universe?

Does the expanding universe have a gravity wave associated with it, like the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation? Would this be the largest wave is space?

Skipping the first question.

The answer to the second question is “yes”. IIUC that’s what the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation is.

That gravitational wave seems to be a relic of the era of slow-roll-inflation.

diddly-squat said:

we observe light and mass doing weird things and we interpret that as a result of changes to space time…

We observe space time doing weird things and we interpret that as a result of changes to light and mass.

diddly-squat said:

we don’t observe space time per se

Arguably, space-time is just an abstract coordinate system.

But we are talking about the (very) fabric of space-time (itself).

This must be a material thing.

Otherwise, why would we refer to it as a “fabric”?

a discussion. Marcus is usually pretty good.

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/what-is-the-spacetime-fabric.5732/

ChrispenEvan said:

a discussion. Marcus is usually pretty good.

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/what-is-the-spacetime-fabric.5732/

Didn’t find that very enlightening I’m afraid (in spite of the link to a Dr K piece from 2001).

The problem I have with these discussions is that people say stuff as though saying it makes it true, but it doesn’t.

Space is infinite, it is dark
Space is neutral, it is cold
Stars occupy minute areas of space
They are clustered a few billion here
And a few billion there
As if seeking consolation in numbers
Space does not care, space does not threaten
Space does not comfort
It does not speak, it does not wake
It does not dream

It does not know, it does not fear
It does not love, it does not hate
It does not encourage any of these qualities
Space cannot be measured, it cannot be
Angered, it cannot be placated
It cannot be summed up, space is there
Space is not large and it is not small
It does not live and it does not die
It does not offer truth and neither does it lie
Space is a remorseless, senseless, impersonal fact
Space is the absence of time and of matter

– Black Corridor – Hawkwind (Michael Moorcock)

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” (made from the fabric of space) is a short tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that they don’t see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as “unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent”. Finally, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” The tale has been translated into over 100 languages.

PermeateFree said:

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” (made from the fabric of space) is a short tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that they don’t see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as “unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent”. Finally, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” The tale has been translated into over 100 languages.

An old mate of mine, many years ago, asked this question:

What if the emperor really was wearing a suit of clothes that no-one could see?

I’ve always liked that question.

What is the fabric of space made of?

fields.

The Rev Dodgson said:

PermeateFree said:

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” (made from the fabric of space) is a short tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that they don’t see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as “unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent”. Finally, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” The tale has been translated into over 100 languages.

An old mate of mine, many years ago, asked this question:

What if the emperor really was wearing a suit of clothes that no-one could see?

I’ve always liked that question.

i was trying to think of a science book by the same name. turns out it was close

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Mind

What are fields made of?

• What are fields made of?

Dreams…

The Rev Dodgson said:

What are fields made of?

particles. and virtual particles i would think. maybe more likely the latter than former.

The Rev Dodgson said:

What are fields made of?

Tensors.

I have no clue. Just word association.

ChrispenEvan said:

What is the fabric of space made of?

fields.

—-

Dark Energy. :p

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

PermeateFree said:

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” (made from the fabric of space) is a short tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that they don’t see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as “unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent”. Finally, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” The tale has been translated into over 100 languages.

An old mate of mine, many years ago, asked this question:

What if the emperor really was wearing a suit of clothes that no-one could see?

I’ve always liked that question.

i was trying to think of a science book by the same name. turns out it was close

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Mind

I’m pretty sure I’ve read that :)

https://www.quora.com/Is-dark-energy-the-fabric-of-space-time

tauto said:

https://www.quora.com/Is-dark-energy-the-fabric-of-space-time

The love between the fabric.

Properties of Space

Here are some properties of space I have gathered together. I’m sure there’s more.

1 Space was created by the big bang, the universe is still expanding, so new space is presumably being created.

2 Space is transparent.

3 Space is also dark.

4 Space exists within the universe.

5 Space could be either Infinite or finite.

6 Space can contain things from atomic particles to galaxies.

7 Space has a relationship with Time, Space / Time.

8 Space is three dimensional or 4 dimensional with time.

8 Every point in space can support different vibrations across the frequency spectrum.

9 Objects like galaxies or stars can move around in space.

10 Space can carry high energy particles, radio waves and light, electromagnetic energy, gravity, weak and strong forces .

11 Space can have different objects like atomic particles or black holes that exist in different places that have different gravities which can attract or repel.

12 Space has a temperature.

13 Space can have structure. Space-Time gets curved by the mass of Stars and Black-holes.

14 Universe topology Flat, (No curvature, Open (Negative curvature), Closed (Positive curvature).

15 Space can be bounded or unbounded, assuming a finite universe, the universe can either have an edge or no edge.

16 Connectivity, how the universe is put together, simply connected space or multiply connected space.

17 Space could either be quantum foam, cosmic strings, quanta, nothing, another state of matter, or something different again.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Properties of Space

Here are some properties of space I have gathered together. I’m sure there’s more.

15 Space can be bounded or unbounded, assuming a finite universe, the universe can either have an edge or no edge.

we assume no edge, as having one would create problems.

ChrispenEvan said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Properties of Space

Here are some properties of space I have gathered together. I’m sure there’s more.

15 Space can be bounded or unbounded, assuming a finite universe, the universe can either have an edge or no edge.

we assume no edge, as having one would create problems.

What sort of problems?

AwesomeO said:

ChrispenEvan said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Properties of Space

Here are some properties of space I have gathered together. I’m sure there’s more.

15 Space can be bounded or unbounded, assuming a finite universe, the universe can either have an edge or no edge.

we assume no edge, as having one would create problems.

What sort of problems?

what is on the other side of the edge.

AwesomeO said:

ChrispenEvan said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Properties of Space

Here are some properties of space I have gathered together. I’m sure there’s more.

15 Space can be bounded or unbounded, assuming a finite universe, the universe can either have an edge or no edge.

we assume no edge, as having one would create problems.

What sort of problems?

The theory if falling off cliff faces.

ChrispenEvan said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Properties of Space

Here are some properties of space I have gathered together. I’m sure there’s more.

15 Space can be bounded or unbounded, assuming a finite universe, the universe can either have an edge or no edge.

we assume no edge, as having one would create problems.

Some people assume …

ChrispenEvan said:

AwesomeO said:

ChrispenEvan said:

we assume no edge, as having one would create problems.

What sort of problems?

what is on the other side of the edge.

here we are talking about The Universe as opposed to The Observable Universe.

ChrispenEvan said:

AwesomeO said:

ChrispenEvan said:

we assume no edge, as having one would create problems.

What sort of problems?

what is on the other side of the edge.

That’s a big problem. I was thinking it might be mathematical issues.

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Properties of Space

Here are some properties of space I have gathered together. I’m sure there’s more.

15 Space can be bounded or unbounded, assuming a finite universe, the universe can either have an edge or no edge.

we assume no edge, as having one would create problems.

Some people assume …

yeah, people like cosmologists.

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

we assume no edge, as having one would create problems.

Some people assume …

yeah, people like cosmologists.

Some cosmologists.

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Some people assume …

yeah, people like cosmologists.

Some cosmologists.

i would say most. by a large amount. bit like 97% scientists believe in manmade climate change.

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

yeah, people like cosmologists.

Some cosmologists.

i would say most. by a large amount. bit like 97% scientists believe in manmade climate change.

I doubt that it’s anything like 97%.

But anyway, it’s not a question that cosmologists are any more qualified to answer than anybody else, since it is by definition outside their field of study.

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

yeah, people like cosmologists.

Some cosmologists.

i would say most. by a large amount. bit like 97% scientists believe in manmade climate change.

I wouldn’t t use that 97% as a bolster to your position.

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

yeah, people like cosmologists.

Some cosmologists.

i would say most. by a large amount. bit like 97% scientists believe in manmade climate change.

99.97% of engineers believe that drinking beer is fun.

sibeen said:

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Some cosmologists.

i would say most. by a large amount. bit like 97% scientists believe in manmade climate change.

99.97% of engineers believe that drinking beer is fun.

+- 5%

AwesomeO said:

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Some cosmologists.

i would say most. by a large amount. bit like 97% scientists believe in manmade climate change.

I wouldn’t t use that 97% as a bolster to your position.

i was using it as an analogy. i do actually know the proper context of that oft quoted line.

ChrispenEvan said:

AwesomeO said:

ChrispenEvan said:

i would say most. by a large amount. bit like 97% scientists believe in manmade climate change.

I wouldn’t t use that 97% as a bolster to your position.

i was using it as an analogy. i do actually know the proper context of that oft quoted line.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-advanced.htm

I think someone got off topic.

ChrispenEvan said:

ChrispenEvan said:

AwesomeO said:

What sort of problems?

what is on the other side of the edge.

here we are talking about The Universe as opposed to The Observable Universe.

Close to the edge.. Down by the river.. Yes.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51oPKLSuyQY

mollwollfumble said:

I think someone got off tropic.

fixed

So the list of possibilities

Space could either be

1 Quantum foam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam

Quantum foam (also referred to as spacetime foam) is a concept in quantum mechanics devised by John Wheeler in 1955. The foam is conceptualized as the foundation of the fabric of the universe

article on Quantum Foam
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/31dec_quantumfoam

2 Cosmic strings.

3 Quanta.

4 Nothing.

5 A state of matter that we don’t know about.

6 Something different again.

Which of these can be eliminated.

Any others that could be added?

Tau.Neutrino said:

So the list of possibilities

Space could either be

1 Quantum foam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam

Quantum foam (also referred to as spacetime foam) is a concept in quantum mechanics devised by John Wheeler in 1955. The foam is conceptualized as the foundation of the fabric of the universe

article on Quantum Foam
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/31dec_quantumfoam

2 Cosmic strings.

3 Quanta.

4 Nothing.

5 A state of matter that we don’t know about.

6 Something different again.

Which of these can be eliminated.

Any others that could be added?

sandy, silky or sudsy.

it’s the whatever that radio waves can propagate through, so you can watch TV, and stuff

it’s the whatever that allows IR to propagate, contributing quite a lot to me feeling chill sitting here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AukFsBv2oDY

the aether has an impedance anyway, why antenna element lengths are what they are, and coax cables from that.

ChrispenEvan said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

So the list of possibilities

Space could either be

1 Quantum foam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam

Quantum foam (also referred to as spacetime foam) is a concept in quantum mechanics devised by John Wheeler in 1955. The foam is conceptualized as the foundation of the fabric of the universe

article on Quantum Foam
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/31dec_quantumfoam

2 Cosmic strings.

3 Quanta.

4 Nothing.

5 A state of matter that we don’t know about.

6 Something different again.

Which of these can be eliminated.

Any others that could be added?

sandy, silky or sudsy.

Sandy = Quanta. Quantum Mechanics, lumps in the form of quanta.
Silk = String Theory, cosmic strings.
Sudsy = Quantum foam or Space-Time foam.

transition said:

the aether has an impedance anyway, why antenna element lengths are what they are, and coax cables from that.

You mean different frequencies on the frequency spectrum?

roughbarked said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AukFsBv2oDY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ps0hl7BiHE

transition said:

the aether has an impedance anyway, why antenna element lengths are what they are, and coax cables from that.

The aether has been discredited but it might be making a comeback if this thread title is a clue.

I’m going with quantum foam.

The fabric of Space Time is Quantum Foam.

Haven’t we had this discussion before on this topic?

AwesomeO said:

transition said:

the aether has an impedance anyway, why antenna element lengths are what they are, and coax cables from that.

The aether has been discredited but it might be making a comeback if this thread title is a clue.

There seems a thread yet to be grasped.

conceiving the heavens, clear of nisty shroud.

Tau.Neutrino said:

I’m going with quantum foam.

The fabric of Space Time is Quantum Foam.

Haven’t we had this discussion before on this topic?

it seems a floaty.

roughbarked said:

roughbarked said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AukFsBv2oDY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ps0hl7BiHE

Well while we are u-tubing, I think this is sort of on topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3vWQY7k3zs

Tau.Neutrino said:

transition said:

the aether has an impedance anyway, why antenna element lengths are what they are, and coax cables from that.

You mean different frequencies on the frequency spectrum?

no, I mean a half wave dipole stick (for example – to keep it simple) couples into the aether. Vacuum has an impedance (atmosphere changes the impedance), but my point is a half-wave end-fed stick has an impedance, from which transmission lines are based (coax and balanced).

like 50, 75, 300 Ohm are courtesy the aether in a way? And there’re half wave dipoles (balanced centre-fed), folded dipoles..

1/4 wave, 1/2, whatever

maybe’s characteristic impedance, or equivalent impedance, dunno

still, the antenna (a transducer) couples into something.

i’m math-dumb, but this sort of thing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impedance_of_free_space

The Rev Dodgson said:

roughbarked said:

roughbarked said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AukFsBv2oDY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ps0hl7BiHE

Well while we are u-tubing, I think this is sort of on topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3vWQY7k3zs

Something incredibly stringy in here somewhere?

transition said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

transition said:

the aether has an impedance anyway, why antenna element lengths are what they are, and coax cables from that.

You mean different frequencies on the frequency spectrum?

no, I mean a half wave dipole stick (for example – to keep it simple) couples into the aether. Vacuum has an impedance (atmosphere changes the impedance), but my point is a half-wave end-fed stick has an impedance, from which transmission lines are based (coax and balanced).

like 50, 75, 300 Ohm are courtesy the aether in a way? And there’re half wave dipoles (balanced centre-fed), folded dipoles..

You have identified some more properties of space, impedance and vacuum. I will add them to the list.

Yes cables can have different impedance’s

Cable Impedance
http://www.epanorama.net/documents/wiring/cable_impedance.html

Antenna Impedance
http://www.antenna-theory.com/basics/impedance.php

Impedance of free space
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impedance_of_free_space

and

Characteristic impedance of free space
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/characteristic-impedance-of-free-space

I think the impedance of the atmosphere is variable and is different to that of the impedance of free space in a vacuum?

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-HJ5t-5UK0&list=RDG-HJ5t-5UK0#t=2

Interesting article on Quantum foam
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/31dec_quantumfoam

Interesting article on Electric Current through the Atmosphere
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2006/TerryMathew.shtml

Tau.Neutrino said:

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.

Aoum

roughbarked said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.

Aoum

let me take you back further ito the past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y_9hwW1eV0&index=2&list=RDG-HJ5t-5UK0

The Moody Blues – Ride My See Saw

Tau.Neutrino said:

The Moody Blues – Ride My See Saw

I’ve just been though their whole repoitoir?

Let me take you back.. to question the balance

Moody Blues – Question (1970)

roughbarked said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

The Moody Blues – Ride My See Saw

I’ve just been though their whole repoitoir?

Let me take you back.. to question the balance

Question and Ride My See Saw are two of my favorites.

roughbarked said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

The Moody Blues – Ride My See Saw

I’ve just been though their whole repoitoir?

Let me take you back.. to question the balance

https://youtu.be/qv4v-ZMpKjE?t=1798

Properties of Space

1 Space was created by the big bang, the universe is still expanding, so new space is presumably being created.

2 Space is transparent.

3 Space is also dark.

4 Space exists within the universe.

5 Space could be either Infinite or finite.

6 Space can contain things from atomic particles to galaxies.

7 Space has a relationship with Time, Space / Time.

8 Space is three dimensional or 4 dimensional with time.

8 Every point in space can support different vibrations across the frequency spectrum.

9 Objects like galaxies or stars can move around in space.

10 Space can carry high energy particles, radio waves and light, electromagnetic energy, gravity, weak and strong forces .

11 Space can have different objects like atomic particles or black holes that exist in different places that have different gravities which can attract or repel.

12 Space has a temperature.

13 Space can have structure. Space-Time gets curved by the mass of Stars and Black-holes.

14 Universe topology Flat, (No curvature, Open (Negative curvature), Closed (Positive curvature).

15 Space can be bounded or unbounded, assuming a finite universe, the universe can either have an edge or no edge.

16 Connectivity, how the universe is put together, simply connected space or multiply connected space.

17 Space has an impedance, Impedance of Free space.

18 Space can have high densities such as the interior of a black hole, star, or a planet with an an atmosphere to low densities such as a gas cloud in space or a vacuum in space.

19 The universe does expand faster than the speed of light, and some of the galaxies we can see right now are currently moving away from us faster than the speed of light.

20 Space could either be quantum foam, cosmic strings, quanta, nothing, another state of matter, or something different again.

> Properties of Space

> 1 Space was created by the big bang, the universe is still expanding, so new space is presumably being created.

Latest data says that this is true, unless the “eternal inflation” model of cosmology is correct, in which case space was created by the process of cosmic inflation.

> 2 Space is transparent.

OK. Mostly. I wouldn’t call black holes “transparent”.

> 3 Space is also dark.

Yes, sort of. Keep in mind that space contains at least 400 photons per cubic centimetre.

> 4 Space exists within the universe.

Yes, and possibly outside it.

> 5 Space could be either Infinite or finite.

Infinite. Extremely unlikely to be finite.

> 6 Space can contain things from atomic particles to galaxies.

> 7 Space has a relationship with Time, Space / Time.

> 8 Space is three dimensional or 4 dimensional with time.

Or one-dimensional (CDT theory), or nine-dimensional (superstrings), or ten-dimensional (M-theory).

> 8 Every point in space can support different vibrations across the frequency spectrum.

> 9 Objects like galaxies or stars can move around in space.

> 10 Space can carry high energy particles, radio waves and light, electromagnetic energy, gravity, weak and strong forces .

> 11 Space can have different objects like atomic particles or black holes that exist in different places that have different gravities which can attract or repel.

> 12 Space has a temperature.

> 13 Space can have structure. Space-Time gets curved by the mass of Stars and Black-holes.

Space may or may not have singularities, where the curvature becomes infinite, within black holes.

> 14 Universe topology Flat, (No curvature), Open (Negative curvature), Closed (Positive curvature).

Best data supports “flat”.

> 15 Space can be bounded or unbounded, assuming a finite universe, the universe can either have an edge or no edge.

False false false. The universe is unbounded. Even in the extremely unlikely event that it is finite, it would still be unbounded.

> 16 Connectivity, how the universe is put together, simply connected space or multiply connected space.

I’m tempted to insist on it being “simply connected”. I may be wrong there but I don’t think so, the more I think about Penrose diagrams the more I come to the conclusion that the parts that are not part of the space we know are artifacts of the coordinate system. And Tegmark’s topological connectivities seem to have been ruled out by observation.

> 17 Space has an impedance, Impedance of Free space.

A what? Do you mean that space has … oh yes, OK. I usually think of it as space has three constants of which two are independent, vacuum permeability, vacuum permittivity, and the speed of light. The “impedance” is the permeability times the speed of light.

> 18 Space can have high densities such as the interior of a black hole, star, or a planet with an an atmosphere to low densities such as a gas cloud in space or a vacuum in space.

More accurate to say “matter in space” rather than just “space”. The density of space is created by the curvature due to gravity, which is not quite the same thing.

> 19 The universe does expand faster than the speed of light, and some of the galaxies we can see right now are currently moving away from us faster than the speed of light.

> 20 Space could either be quantum foam, cosmic strings, quanta, nothing, another state of matter, or something different again.

Not “cosmic strings”. I think you meant to say “superstrings”, which are different, but not even that. Instead of “cosmic strings” you should have said “branes”. I can’t agree with “another state of matter” because whatever space is, it is not “matter”.

transition said:

it’s the whatever that radio waves can propagate through, so you can watch TV, and stuff

it’s the whatever that allows IR to propagate, contributing quite a lot to me feeling chill sitting here.

emr doesn’t need a medium. this has been known for quite a while. moving magnetic fields and moving electric fields and all that.

transition said:

the aether has an impedance anyway, why antenna element lengths are what they are, and coax cables from that.

no. purely to do with resonance.

AwesomeO said:

transition said:

the aether has an impedance anyway, why antenna element lengths are what they are, and coax cables from that.

The aether has been discredited but it might be making a comeback if this thread title is a clue.

that is possible but it hasn’t the same properties, or purpose, as the original aether.

ChrispenEvan said:

transition said:

it’s the whatever that radio waves can propagate through, so you can watch TV, and stuff

it’s the whatever that allows IR to propagate, contributing quite a lot to me feeling chill sitting here.

emr doesn’t need a medium. this has been assumed for quite a while. moving magnetic fields and moving electric fields and all that.

fixed

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

transition said:

it’s the whatever that radio waves can propagate through, so you can watch TV, and stuff

it’s the whatever that allows IR to propagate, contributing quite a lot to me feeling chill sitting here.

emr doesn’t need a medium. this has been for quite a while. moving magnetic fields and moving electric fields and all that.

fixed

please don’t do that. you are wrong. if you believe that provide evidence that what you assume is correct.

put up or shut up.

ChrispenEvan said:

AwesomeO said:

transition said:

the aether has an impedance anyway, why antenna element lengths are what they are, and coax cables from that.

The aether has been discredited but it might be making a comeback if this thread title is a clue.

that is possible but it hasn’t the same properties, or purpose, as the original aether.

The “original aether” did not have any agreed definition or properties, other than being the underlying fabric of space, so I’d say if space does have an underlying fabric, then it is the same as the original aether, although of course there will be specific versions of the original concept that will be partly or entirely wrong.

anything rev? a paper maybe?

• emr doesn’t need a medium. this has been known for quite a while.

How did “they” determine that?

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

emr doesn’t need a medium. this has been for quite a while. moving magnetic fields and moving electric fields and all that.

fixed

please don’t do that. you are wrong. if you believe that provide evidence that what you assume is correct.

put up or shut up.

Don’t be a hypocrite.

You have provided exactly zero evidence for your statement, because there is none, and can be none.

It is an assumption.

furious said:

• emr doesn’t need a medium. this has been known for quite a while.

How did “they” determine that?

because there is no need so parsimony won the day.

ChrispenEvan said:

anything rev? a paper maybe?

You provide some evidence for your statement, and we’ll have something to work with.

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

fixed

please don’t do that. you are wrong. if you believe that provide evidence that what you assume is correct.

put up or shut up.

Don’t be a hypocrite.

You have provided exactly zero evidence for your statement, because there is none, and can be none.

It is an assumption.

so fuck all then rev. usual story from you.

• because there is no need so parsimony won the day.

I don’t understand, are you saying that they couldn’t be bothered?

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

please don’t do that. you are wrong. if you believe that provide evidence that what you assume is correct.

put up or shut up.

Don’t be a hypocrite.

You have provided exactly zero evidence for your statement, because there is none, and can be none.

It is an assumption.

so fuck all then rev. usual story from you.

Take a break, have a think about it, and come back and apologise when you’ve settled down a bit.

You are the one making specific claims here. It’s not up to anyone else to provide evidence that the claim is wrong, when you haven’t provided any evidence yourself.

furious said:

• because there is no need so parsimony won the day.

I don’t understand, are you saying that they couldn’t be bothered?

no. that a luminiferous aether is unnecessary. maxwells equations showed that and the MM experiment showed that there was no aether.

ChrispenEvan said:

furious said:

• because there is no need so parsimony won the day.

I don’t understand, are you saying that they couldn’t be bothered?

no. that a luminiferous aether is unnecessary. maxwells equations showed that and the MM experiment showed that there was no aether.

Finally something to work with.

In what way do Maxwell’s equations show that?

The MM experiment is consistent with no aether, but there are other possibilities that are also consistent with the experiment.

I might stop using the word aether and call it God instead

transition said:

I might stop using the word aether and call it God instead

I think that would be even more misleading.

Frank Wilczek calls it a fluid.

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

I might stop using the word aether and call it God instead

I think that would be even more misleading.

Frank Wilczek calls it a fluid.

was half joking but serious, people can call it whatever they like was the point.

it’s a word

like gravity.

transition said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

I might stop using the word aether and call it God instead

I think that would be even more misleading.

Frank Wilczek calls it a fluid.

was half joking but serious, people can call it whatever they like was the point.

it’s a word

like gravity.

OK, but what you call it affects how people think about it.

Haven’t read this in full, but it looks really interesting:

How Feynman Diagrams Almost Saved Space

Looking to break the awkward silence that followed, I asked Feynman the most disturbing question in physics, then as now: “There’s something else I’ve been thinking a lot about: Why doesn’t empty space weigh anything?”

Feynman, normally as quick and lively as they come, went silent. It was the only time I’ve ever seen him look wistful. Finally he said dreamily, “I once thought I had that one figured out. It was beautiful.” And then, excited, he began an explanation that crescendoed in a near shout: “The reason space doesn’t weigh anything, I thought, is because there’s nothing there!”

Lots of other FW articles at the same site

Reading about the experiments conducted if it exists it must be quite minute

The Rev Dodgson said:

Haven’t read this in full, but it looks really interesting:

How Feynman Diagrams Almost Saved Space

Looking to break the awkward silence that followed, I asked Feynman the most disturbing question in physics, then as now: “There’s something else I’ve been thinking a lot about: Why doesn’t empty space weigh anything?”

Feynman, normally as quick and lively as they come, went silent. It was the only time I’ve ever seen him look wistful. Finally he said dreamily, “I once thought I had that one figured out. It was beautiful.” And then, excited, he began an explanation that crescendoed in a near shout: “The reason space doesn’t weigh anything, I thought, is because there’s nothing there!”

… and the closing paragraphs:

We’re left with an estimate of the dark energy that is finite (maybe), but poorly determined theoretically and, on the face of it, much too big. Presumably there are additional cancellations we don’t know about. The most popular idea, at present, is that the smallness of the dark energy is a kind of rare accident, which happens to occur in our particular corner of the multiverse. Though unlikely a priori, it is necessary for our existence, and therefore what we are fated to observe.

That story, I’m afraid, is not nearly so elegant as Feynman’s “There’s nothing there!” Let’s hope we can find a better one.

West Australian town with lowest toddler vaccination rate revealed

Before opening the link, I had a guess, turns out I was right. But my other guess would be that most people would say the same place…

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I think that would be even more misleading.

Frank Wilczek calls it a fluid.

was half joking but serious, people can call it whatever they like was the point.

it’s a word

like gravity.

OK, but what you call it affects how people think about it.

Yes, I suppose that’s a danger if people don’t consider there is an actual physics out there quite separate from the work of minds, and that language (words) threatens to alter that reality, but for the moment i’m happy there is a nature out there that’s quite indifferent to such grasping enthusiasms.

I’d expect the idea of God has a long history of association, expression of there being unknowns, and unknowables. The modest God, pagan maybe, but then it went industrial I guess.

Ignore my previous post. Wrong thread. obviously…

transition said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

was half joking but serious, people can call it whatever they like was the point.

it’s a word

like gravity.

OK, but what you call it affects how people think about it.

Yes, I suppose that’s a danger if people don’t consider there is an actual physics out there quite separate from the work of minds, and that language (words) threatens to alter that reality, but for the moment i’m happy there is a nature out there that’s quite indifferent to such grasping enthusiasms.

I’d expect the idea of God has a long history of association, expression of there being unknowns, and unknowables. The modest God, pagan maybe, but then it went industrial I guess.

But isn’t calling “space” “god” like (for instance) calling an amoeba a tree. They may have some features in common, but they also have some pretty big differences.

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

OK, but what you call it affects how people think about it.

Yes, I suppose that’s a danger if people don’t consider there is an actual physics out there quite separate from the work of minds, and that language (words) threatens to alter that reality, but for the moment i’m happy there is a nature out there that’s quite indifferent to such grasping enthusiasms.

I’d expect the idea of God has a long history of association, expression of there being unknowns, and unknowables. The modest God, pagan maybe, but then it went industrial I guess.

But isn’t calling “space” “god” like (for instance) calling an amoeba a tree. They may have some features in common, but they also have some pretty big differences.

No it’s more like calling gravity the great attractor.

Anyway, back to my example previous, far as I can see an antenna couples into something, that something appears to have an impedance (hence the characteristics of antennas), so to me this suggests free space has physical properties. It’s not a crazy assertion, no crazier than gravity as a force has physical properties.

transition said:

… so to me this suggests free space has physical properties. It’s not a crazy assertion, no crazier than gravity as a force has physical properties.

On that bit (at least) we are agreed.

Indeed, it seems to me a good deal less crazy than the idea that there could be some force between distant objects with nothing in between.

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

… so to me this suggests free space has physical properties. It’s not a crazy assertion, no crazier than gravity as a force has physical properties.

On that bit (at least) we are agreed.

Indeed, it seems to me a good deal less crazy than the idea that there could be some force between distant objects with nothing in between.

Yes space allows the transmission of radio waves.

or put another way one can transmit a signal into space and receive a signal from space.

I believe space has physical properties that allow this to happen.

Also note that transmitting a signal through the atmosphere is slightly different to transmitting a signal in the vacuum of space and thus transmitting a signal through different materials will have different results, all the mathematics for all that has been worked out and is freely available in Antenna Books and on the Web.

Tau.Neutrino said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

… so to me this suggests free space has physical properties. It’s not a crazy assertion, no crazier than gravity as a force has physical properties.

On that bit (at least) we are agreed.

Indeed, it seems to me a good deal less crazy than the idea that there could be some force between distant objects with nothing in between.

Yes space allows the transmission of radio waves.

or put another way one can transmit a signal into space and receive a signal from space.

I believe space has physical properties that allow this to happen.

Also note that transmitting a signal through the atmosphere is slightly different to transmitting a signal in the vacuum of space and thus transmitting a signal through different materials will have different results, all the mathematics for all that has been worked out and is freely available in Antenna Books and on the Web.

I wonder if its possible to create a substance were light travels faster through it than in a vacuum

Tau.Neutrino said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

… so to me this suggests free space has physical properties. It’s not a crazy assertion, no crazier than gravity as a force has physical properties.

I believe space has physical properties that allow this to happen.

what are these properties?

you have permeability and permittivity of free space which governs the speed of emr transmission, the absolute speed of light in a vacuum.

http://www.maxwells-equations.com/index.php#maxwells

probably see the aether as a transduction mechanism, same gravity

transition said:

probably see the aether as a transduction mechanism, same gravity

emr doesn’t need a medium.

ChrispenEvan said:

transition said:

probably see the aether as a transduction mechanism, same gravity

emr doesn’t need a medium.

my point above is it (whatever it is) is involved in energy conversion, as is gravity

transition said:

ChrispenEvan said:

transition said:

probably see the aether as a transduction mechanism, same gravity

emr doesn’t need a medium.

my point above is it (whatever it is) is involved in energy conversion, as is gravity

and my point is that it doesn’t require anything to be propagated. all that is needed is an emitter and a receiver, or absorber.

Bubblecar said:

Space is machine-washable without any apparent shrinkage and never needs ironing, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the fabric involved is a trade secret.

it’s probably just a poly-cotton blend

A little off topic but the case for dark matter is that some galaxies or maybe stars, I forget now, are orbiting each other at speeds that are above the escape velocity of the visible matter and dark matter is one of the explanations.

Peak Warming Man said:

A little off topic but the case for dark matter is that some galaxies or maybe stars, I forget now, are orbiting each other at speeds that are above the escape velocity of the visible matter and dark matter is one of the explanations.

more this

https://www.e-education.psu.edu/astro801/content/l8_p8.html

ChrispenEvan said:

transition said:

ChrispenEvan said:

emr doesn’t need a medium.

my point above is it (whatever it is) is involved in energy conversion, as is gravity

and my point is that it doesn’t require anything to be propagated. all that is needed is an emitter and a receiver, or absorber.

Where is your evidence for this assertion?

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

and my point is that it doesn’t require anything to be propagated. all that is needed is an emitter and a receiver, or absorber.

Where is your evidence for this assertion?

All the experimental evidence points to there being no medium of transmission. Why do you want to complicate things?

Witty Rejoinder said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

and my point is that it doesn’t require anything to be propagated. all that is needed is an emitter and a receiver, or absorber.

Where is your evidence for this assertion?

All the experimental evidence points to there being no medium of transmission. Why do you want to complicate things?

So far no-one has provided any evidence that there is no medium of transmission.

Evidence that there is a medium of transmission is that light follows different paths, depending on the properties of the space it is passing through.

How can space have properties if it is empty?

Witty Rejoinder said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

and my point is that it doesn’t require anything to be propagated. all that is needed is an emitter and a receiver, or absorber.

Where is your evidence for this assertion?

All the experimental evidence points to there being no medium of transmission. Why do you want to complicate things?

All the experimental evidence points to there being no medium required for transmission.

just a slight alteration, hope you don’t mind.

:-)

ChrispenEvan said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Where is your evidence for this assertion?

All the experimental evidence points to there being no medium of transmission. Why do you want to complicate things?

All the experimental evidence points to there being no medium required for transmission.

just a slight alteration, hope you don’t mind.

:-)

Would you like to provide some examples of this evidence ?

Witty Rejoinder said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

ChrispenEvan said:

and my point is that it doesn’t require anything to be propagated. all that is needed is an emitter and a receiver, or absorber.

Where is your evidence for this assertion?

All the experimental evidence points to there being no medium of transmission. Why do you want to complicate things?

learned from paul h, all science is wrong.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Where is your evidence for this assertion?

All the experimental evidence points to there being no medium of transmission. Why do you want to complicate things?

So far no-one has provided any evidence that there is no medium of transmission.

Evidence that there is a medium of transmission is that light follows different paths, depending on the properties of the space it is passing through.

How can space have properties if it is empty?

Perhaps it’s down at the level of quantum strings

Cymek said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

All the experimental evidence points to there being no medium of transmission. Why do you want to complicate things?

So far no-one has provided any evidence that there is no medium of transmission.

Evidence that there is a medium of transmission is that light follows different paths, depending on the properties of the space it is passing through.

How can space have properties if it is empty?

Perhaps it’s down at the level of quantum strings

Presumably it’s at the level of quantum somethings.

Unless it’s something else.

ChrispenEvan said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Where is your evidence for this assertion?

All the experimental evidence points to there being no medium of transmission. Why do you want to complicate things?

learned from paul h, all science is wrong.

>>Occam’s razor is a logical principle attributed to the mediaeval philosopher William of Occam (or Ockham). The principle states that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed.<<

‘Yes you can’ vs ‘No you can’t’

Who can out-talk the other? Who will out-Occam the other first?

The most impressive thing about space is that it works. For all sorts of things. I’m glad of that.

transition said:

The most impressive thing about space is that it works. For all sorts of things. I’m glad of that.

Ditto.

But for how long will it work? Space is metastable, so could destroy itself at any time.

For more detail see Implications of the top (and Higgs) mass for vacuum stability

The lifetime of space before it disintegrates is predicted to be ~30 billion years, with a standard deviation of 2 to 1000 billion years.

The universe is already 13.82 billion years old. So we’re at serious risk of space destroying itself.

mollwollfumble said:

transition said:

The most impressive thing about space is that it works. For all sorts of things. I’m glad of that.

Ditto.

But for how long will it work? Space is metastable, so could destroy itself at any time.

For more detail see Implications of the top (and Higgs) mass for vacuum stability

The lifetime of space before it disintegrates is predicted to be ~30 billion years, with a standard deviation of 2 to 1000 billion years.

The universe is already 13.82 billion years old. So we’re at serious risk of space destroying itself.

Wait. Latest measurements of the top quark mass make the stability of space better.
Top quark mass 172.44 +-0.49 GeV/c ²

The lifetime of space before it disintegrates is now predicted to be ~1000 billion years, with a standard deviation of 100 to 10,000 billion years.

Whew, catastrophe averted, for now.

But, that top quark mass is from instant answers on Google and is therefore suspect. From 2016, https://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/19262/ gives top quark mass 172.4 +-0.70 GeV/c ² Same mean value but standard deviation not as good.

mollwollfumble said:

The lifetime of space before it disintegrates is now predicted to be ~1000 billion years, with a standard deviation of 100 to 10,000 billion years.

Whew, catastrophe averted, for now.

That would depend on the standard deviation, wouldn’t It?

And how close the mathematical model is to the real mechanisms of space-time.

How do you calculate this stability factor anyway?

Oh, just noticed the link.

I’ll go and have a read.

Not an easy read, but the conclusions are quite interesting.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Not an easy read, but the conclusions are quite interesting.

In complete agreement.

KJW said:

Space is infinite, it is dark
Space is neutral, it is cold
Stars occupy minute areas of space
They are clustered a few billion here
And a few billion there
As if seeking consolation in numbers
Space does not care, space does not threaten
Space does not comfort
It does not speak, it does not wake
It does not dream

It does not know, it does not fear
It does not love, it does not hate
It does not encourage any of these qualities
Space cannot be measured, it cannot be
Angered, it cannot be placated
It cannot be summed up, space is there
Space is not large and it is not small
It does not live and it does not die
It does not offer truth and neither does it lie
Space is a remorseless, senseless, impersonal fact
Space is the absence of time and of matter

– Black Corridor – Hawkwind (Michael Moorcock)

Perhaps a YouTube video would help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jzk_sQetI8

This is followed by “Space Is Deep”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNhmzyc_OrE

I’ve been to a Hawkwind concert in London.

1970 probably.

It was very loud:)

The Rev Dodgson said:

I’ve been to a Hawkwind concert in London.

1970 probably.

It was very loud:)

Wow! I’m actually a little jealous. Was it the Space Ritual concert… are you one of voices of the audience that can be heard on the album?

The Rev Dodgson said:

It was very loud:)

Wendy & the Rockets. Lower Plenty Hotel, 1981. It took four days for my hearing to recover.

KJW said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I’ve been to a Hawkwind concert in London.

1970 probably.

It was very loud:)

Wow! I’m actually a little jealous. Was it the Space Ritual concert… are you one of voices of the audience that can be heard on the album?

Don’t think so.

It was at University College.

My recollections of the evening are a little fuzzy :)

The Rev Dodgson said:

It was at University College.

My recollections of the evening are a little fuzzy :)

Was it a free concert? Hawkwind were reknowned for setting up to play for free outside other venues.

KJW said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

It was at University College.

My recollections of the evening are a little fuzzy :)

Was it a free concert? Hawkwind were reknowned for setting up to play for free outside other venues.

No, would have been quite expensive.

About 5 bob probably.

imagine there’d been no stars in the sky except our own sun.

keep the moon if you like, and other planets in our solar system

what’d be different.

it’s almost unimaginable how different it’d be, quite depressing really to the extent it’s imaginable.

On the question of what space is made of, it can’t be made of anything familiar because the vacuum of space is ostensibly empty and devoid of anything familiar. That then leaves the unfamiliar. But this leaves one with the problem of defining that thing with regards to the Münchhausen trilemma.

transition said:

imagine there’d been no stars in the sky except our own sun.

keep the moon if you like, and other planets in our solar system

what’d be different.

it’s almost unimaginable how different it’d be, quite depressing really to the extent it’s imaginable.

Some people might be in awe to the extent it’s imaginable.

I’m not sure what the Rev actually means by “made of”.

But if we accept the reality of “quantum foam”, space would seem to be made of the same stuff as everything else, but at very low density.

>anything familiar because the vacuum of space is ostensibly empty and devoid of anything familiar.

unoccupied space has about it the possibility of being occupied, which isn’t in any way unfamiliar (the idea, and in practice). It’s part of the physics of possibility space.

makes a lot possible in the universe too. Orbits of the planets. That you might have stood or sat where you did and typed what you did(preventing someone else from doing it in the same place at the same time I might add).

transition said:

>anything familiar because the vacuum of space is ostensibly empty and devoid of anything familiar.

unoccupied space has about it the possibility of being occupied, which isn’t in any way unfamiliar (the idea, and in practice). It’s part of the physics of possibility space.

makes a lot possible in the universe too. Orbits of the planets. That you might have stood or sat where you did and typed what you did(preventing someone else from doing it in the same place at the same time I might add).

But that doesn’t really address the issue of what space is made of. It is legitimate to ask what properties space has, but what it is made of is problematic because things such as dark energy are themselves just words that are in need of definition.

KJW said:

transition said:

>anything familiar because the vacuum of space is ostensibly empty and devoid of anything familiar.

unoccupied space has about it the possibility of being occupied, which isn’t in any way unfamiliar (the idea, and in practice). It’s part of the physics of possibility space.

makes a lot possible in the universe too. Orbits of the planets. That you might have stood or sat where you did and typed what you did(preventing someone else from doing it in the same place at the same time I might add).

But that doesn’t really address the issue of what space is made of. It is legitimate to ask what properties space has, but what it is made of is problematic because things such as dark energy are themselves just words that are in need of definition.

thought of as possibility space it’s a different proposition

it’s not what is there, it’s what could be or happen there.

space is a place where a this and this can do that. Where forces can interact, the origins of mechanism.

probably where geometry lives

my view is that possibility space is a real thing.

might add to that space separates, it insulates (of solar systems, galaxies etc, but too features variously at different scales of organic life, and what humans make).

Ignoring the little bit of gas in the vacuum of a vacuum flask, the vacuum is not a nothing of the flask’s slowing down of heat loss(function we’d attribute, but ignore that).

transition said:

my view is that possibility space is a real thing.

I agree with you here. I think the many-worlds interpretation is about the space of all possibilities. But that is not the same as saying that space is made of something (if indeed you are saying that space is made of something).

KJW said:

transition said:

my view is that possibility space is a real thing.

I agree with you here. I think the many-worlds interpretation is about the space of all possibilities. But that is not the same as saying that space is made of something (if indeed you are saying that space is made of something).

i’m not talking about some many worlds idea, more that mundane. Like I might wander into the next room shortly, sit down and watch TV. The possibility already exists. There’s space for me to move between here and there, and a space for me to sit. I hope, i’ll confirm that in a moment.

The possibilities of a space are a real something.

transition said:

KJW said:

transition said:

my view is that possibility space is a real thing.

I agree with you here. I think the many-worlds interpretation is about the space of all possibilities. But that is not the same as saying that space is made of something (if indeed you are saying that space is made of something).

i’m not talking about some many worlds idea, more that mundane. Like I might wander into the next room shortly, sit down and watch TV. The possibility already exists. There’s space for me to move between here and there, and a space for me to sit. I hope, i’ll confirm that in a moment.

The possibilities of a space are a real something.

I’m not seeing a distinction.

KJW said:

transition said:

KJW said:

I agree with you here. I think the many-worlds interpretation is about the space of all possibilities. But that is not the same as saying that space is made of something (if indeed you are saying that space is made of something).

i’m not talking about some many worlds idea, more that mundane. Like I might wander into the next room shortly, sit down and watch TV. The possibility already exists. There’s space for me to move between here and there, and a space for me to sit. I hope, i’ll confirm that in a moment.

The possibilities of a space are a real something.

I’m not seeing a distinction.

probably isn’t or might not be, just that I don’t see a many-worlds view as necessary for possibility space, if that’s what you meant.

transition said:

probably isn’t or might not be, just that I don’t see a many-worlds view as necessary for possibility space, if that’s what you meant.

Many-worlds is the ultimate possibility space.

Just a quick reminder about the title of this thread.

The question is not what “space” is made of.

The question is, what is “the fabric of space” made of?

If it is not made of anything, why is it called a “fabric”?

If it is made of something, what is it that it is made of?

The Rev Dodgson said:

Just a quick reminder about the title of this thread.

The question is not what “space” is made of.

The question is, what is “the fabric of space” made of?

If it is not made of anything, why is it called a “fabric”?

If it is made of something, what is it that it is made of?

Could fabric of space be an old term, would researching first use of fabric of space turn up anything?

Other wise its a metaphor used to help describe general relativity.

While searching fabric of space I spotted this page.

https://www.quora.com/Science-What-is-the-fabric-of-the-space-time-and-how-it-is-related-to-the-dark-matter

The “fabric” of space time is a concept from General Relativity, which says that gravity is a manifestation of warping the fabric of space-time. All mass, every galaxy, star, planet, even you and me, create little depressions in space-time. The bigger the mass, the bigger the depression.

Tau.Neutrino said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Just a quick reminder about the title of this thread.

The question is not what “space” is made of.

The question is, what is “the fabric of space” made of?

If it is not made of anything, why is it called a “fabric”?

If it is made of something, what is it that it is made of?

Could fabric of space be an old term, would researching first use of fabric of space turn up anything?

Other wise its a metaphor used to help describe general relativity.

While searching fabric of space I spotted this page.

https://www.quora.com/Science-What-is-the-fabric-of-the-space-time-and-how-it-is-related-to-the-dark-matter

The “fabric” of space time is a concept from General Relativity, which says that gravity is a manifestation of warping the fabric of space-time. All mass, every galaxy, star, planet, even you and me, create little depressions in space-time. The bigger the mass, the bigger the depression.

Good questions.

I think the word fabric is more than a metaphor. If space has real effects on matter then it must be a real thing, rather than no-thing.

Obviously there are those who disagree, but I have never seen a convincing argument to justify this disagreement.

>>>If it is made of something, what is it that it is made of?

Contenders, there’s possibly more.

Energy, every point in space lies on a tiny ‘black-hole horizon’
Quantum Foam
Cosmic Strings
A State of Matter
Nothing

Tau.Neutrino said:

>>>If it is made of something, what is it that it is made of?

Contenders, there’s possibly more.

Energy, every point in space lies on a tiny ‘black-hole horizon’
Quantum Foam
Cosmic Strings
A State of Matter
Nothing

To me, 4 doesn’t make sense, and 3 just says that 4 doesn’t make sense, without adding anything. 1 and 2 seem like possibilities, which people are working on.

I guess there are people working with the hypothesis that it is 3, but a different type of 3 to 1 or 2, but we don’t hear much about them (or maybe I’ve just missed it).

>Just a quick reminder about the title of this thread.

it’s about an intangible

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

>>>If it is made of something, what is it that it is made of?

Contenders, there’s possibly more.

Energy, every point in space lies on a tiny ‘black-hole horizon’
Quantum Foam
Cosmic Strings
A State of Matter
Nothing

To me, 4 doesn’t make sense, and 3 just says that 4 doesn’t make sense, without adding anything. 1 and 2 seem like possibilities, which people are working on.

I guess there are people working with the hypothesis that it is 3, but a different type of 3 to 1 or 2, but we don’t hear much about them (or maybe I’ve just missed it).

I wonder how many people are working on it?

Looking around It appears a lot of people who have a PHD don’t seem to have a clear idea of what it is. That seems a bit alarming.

A lot of physicists are giving vague answers. Is this part of a broader problem with fragmentation of information. Is it something we should be concerned about?

transition said:

>Just a quick reminder about the title of this thread.

it’s about an intangible

lots of things are intangible, a fortunate thing, really

Tau.Neutrino said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

>>>If it is made of something, what is it that it is made of?

Contenders, there’s possibly more.

Energy, every point in space lies on a tiny ‘black-hole horizon’
Quantum Foam
Cosmic Strings
A State of Matter
Nothing

To me, 4 doesn’t make sense, and 3 just says that 4 doesn’t make sense, without adding anything. 1 and 2 seem like possibilities, which people are working on.

I guess there are people working with the hypothesis that it is 3, but a different type of 3 to 1 or 2, but we don’t hear much about them (or maybe I’ve just missed it).

I wonder how many people are working on it?

Looking around It appears a lot of people who have a PHD don’t seem to have a clear idea of what it is. That seems a bit alarming.

A lot of physicists are giving vague answers. Is this part of a broader problem with fragmentation of information. Is it something we should be concerned about?

you realise that all the physicists will be talking to each other?

>Is this part of a broader problem with fragmentation of information. Is it something we should be concerned about?

what is it, a grasping, greedy physicalism that finds intangibles such a problem? (to be fixed, and rid of)

even internal mental states (of others) are somewhat what they are, and the possibility of their existence so, because they are largely intangible.

transition said:

>Just a quick reminder about the title of this thread.

it’s about an intangible

I don’t think so.

he point is that it is very tangible.

So tangible that it changes the course of planets, and even light.

Tau.Neutrino said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

>>>If it is made of something, what is it that it is made of?

Contenders, there’s possibly more.

Energy, every point in space lies on a tiny ‘black-hole horizon’
Quantum Foam
Cosmic Strings
A State of Matter
Nothing

To me, 4 doesn’t make sense, and 3 just says that 4 doesn’t make sense, without adding anything. 1 and 2 seem like possibilities, which people are working on.

I guess there are people working with the hypothesis that it is 3, but a different type of 3 to 1 or 2, but we don’t hear much about them (or maybe I’ve just missed it).

I wonder how many people are working on it?

Looking around It appears a lot of people who have a PHD don’t seem to have a clear idea of what it is. That seems a bit alarming.

A lot of physicists are giving vague answers. Is this part of a broader problem with fragmentation of information. Is it something we should be concerned about?

I have so say, I don’t have a clear idea of what the fabric of space is.

I rated those possibilities in that list from most likely to least likely with Energy being the most likely.

Then there’s the mathematics and physics explanations which I certainly don’t know.

We have neutrinos which move through the Earth and our bodies, we cannot see them or feel them as they are way too tiny, there are smaller than atomic nuclei.

So imagine even on much smaller scales than the neutrino, energy residing at every point in space.

Energy exists at the plank limit, the most smallest point in space.

So imagine the neutrinos moving through the whole Earth and us and these neutrinos move while not touching anything.

Then its a little easier to imagine energy at every point is space which in some points interact and other points do not, while larger bodies through through this fabric of space.

Although it appears to me, to be more of a field of energy.

Something like that perhaps?

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

>>>If it is made of something, what is it that it is made of?

Contenders, there’s possibly more.

Energy, every point in space lies on a tiny ‘black-hole horizon’
Quantum Foam
Cosmic Strings
A State of Matter
Nothing

To me, 4 doesn’t make sense, and 3 just says that 4 doesn’t make sense, without adding anything. 1 and 2 seem like possibilities, which people are working on.

I guess there are people working with the hypothesis that it is 3, but a different type of 3 to 1 or 2, but we don’t hear much about them (or maybe I’ve just missed it).

Your no. 1 must have been dark energy, because I didn’t even see it, which made my response nonsensical. It should read:

To me, 5 doesn’t make sense, and 4 just says that 5 doesn’t make sense, without adding anything. 1,2 and 3 seem like possibilities, which people are working on.

Except I don’t know about the “tiny black-hole horizon” bit.

The Rev Dodgson said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

>>>If it is made of something, what is it that it is made of?

Contenders, there’s possibly more.

Energy, every point in space lies on a tiny ‘black-hole horizon’
Quantum Foam
Cosmic Strings
A State of Matter
Nothing

To me, 4 doesn’t make sense, and 3 just says that 4 doesn’t make sense, without adding anything. 1 and 2 seem like possibilities, which people are working on.

I guess there are people working with the hypothesis that it is 3, but a different type of 3 to 1 or 2, but we don’t hear much about them (or maybe I’ve just missed it).

Your no. 1 must have been dark energy, because I didn’t even see it, which made my response nonsensical. It should read:

To me, 5 doesn’t make sense, and 4 just says that 5 doesn’t make sense, without adding anything. 1,2 and 3 seem like possibilities, which people are working on.

Except I don’t know about the “tiny black-hole horizon” bit.

Is it energy wrapped up in the smallest black hole possible?

or

Is it energy residing at the smallest point in space (without any black hole horizon) ?

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

>Just a quick reminder about the title of this thread.

it’s about an intangible

I don’t think so.

he point is that it is very tangible.

So tangible that it changes the course of planets, and even light.

i’m not saying (whatever) doesn’t exist, i’m of the view it does, just I think demonstrating exactly what it is (by reduction) maybe not possible.

it may be that the great bulk of the mass of the universe, way off, influences the physics here by a fifth force.

dunno, for the moment i’m happy calling it God.

transition said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

>Just a quick reminder about the title of this thread.

it’s about an intangible

I don’t think so.

he point is that it is very tangible.

So tangible that it changes the course of planets, and even light.

i’m not saying (whatever) doesn’t exist, i’m of the view it does, just I think demonstrating exactly what it is (by reduction) maybe not possible.

it may be that the great bulk of the mass of the universe, way off, influences the physics here by a fifth force.

dunno, for the moment i’m happy calling it God.

Its so easy to call it something else, or to say someone else did it.

I’d rather see the proper validated explanation.

transition said:

i’m not saying (whatever) doesn’t exist, i’m of the view it does, just I think demonstrating exactly what it is (by reduction) maybe not possible.

it may be that the great bulk of the mass of the universe, way off, influences the physics here by a fifth force.

dunno, for the moment i’m happy calling it God.

I could agree with most of that.

Other than the last bit.

Nonetheless:

Once before the world began
God was sitting in the sky
He began to get some mud together
O I wonder why

The Rev Dodgson said:

The question is not what “space” is made of.

The question is, what is “the fabric of space” made of?

The two questions are the same unless you are begging the question. The term “fabric” arises from the general relativistic notion that spacetime is curved. But that doesn’t make it valid. For example, one often sees ordinary gravity explained using the rubber sheet analogy. But this suggests that ordinary gravity is caused by the curvature of the three-dimensional space in which we live. However, this is completely wrong as the gravity we ordinarily experience has nothing to do with the curvature of the three-dimensional space, but rather is due to gravitational time-dilation which is independent of the curvature of the three-dimensional space.

KJW said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

The question is not what “space” is made of.

The question is, what is “the fabric of space” made of?

The two questions are the same unless you are begging the question. The term “fabric” arises from the general relativistic notion that spacetime is curved. But that doesn’t make it valid. For example, one often sees ordinary gravity explained using the rubber sheet analogy. But this suggests that ordinary gravity is caused by the curvature of the three-dimensional space in which we live. However, this is completely wrong as the gravity we ordinarily experience has nothing to do with the curvature of the three-dimensional space, but rather is due to gravitational time-dilation which is independent of the curvature of the three-dimensional space.

KJW said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

The question is not what “space” is made of.

The question is, what is “the fabric of space” made of?

The two questions are the same unless you are begging the question.

I see the two questions as being the same, but some argue that “space” is just an abstract coordinate system, so in response to that point, I am saying that I am not talking about an abstract coordinate system, I am talking about whatever it is that interacts with matter and EMR to affect the path it takes. This is often called “the fabric of space”, but feel free to call it something else.

KJW said:

The term “fabric” arises from the general relativistic notion that spacetime is curved. But that doesn’t make it valid. For example, one often sees ordinary gravity explained using the rubber sheet analogy. But this suggests that ordinary gravity is caused by the curvature of the three-dimensional space in which we live. However, this is completely wrong as the gravity we ordinarily experience has nothing to do with the curvature of the three-dimensional space, but rather is due to gravitational time-dilation which is independent of the curvature of the three-dimensional space.

Whatever gravity is due to, there must be something doing the gravitational time-dilation, or whatever.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Whatever gravity is due to, there must be something doing the gravitational time-dilation, or whatever.

Why? Can’t something be the way it is simply because that is the way it is? I do think this is an important point with regards to the nature of reality… some things are the way they are simply because that is the way they are. For example, in Newton’s bucket experiment, one enquires how the water knows it’s not in an inertial frame of reference. But the fact of the matter is that of all the frames of reference that exist, there has to be frames of reference that are inertial. Thus, if we are rotating relative to one of those frames, the water in the bucket will respond accordingly.

KJW said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Whatever gravity is due to, there must be something doing the gravitational time-dilation, or whatever.

Why? Can’t something be the way it is simply because that is the way it is? I do think this is an important point with regards to the nature of reality… some things are the way they are simply because that is the way they are. For example, in Newton’s bucket experiment, one enquires how the water knows it’s not in an inertial frame of reference. But the fact of the matter is that of all the frames of reference that exist, there has to be frames of reference that are inertial. Thus, if we are rotating relative to one of those frames, the water in the bucket will respond accordingly.

>Can’t something be the way it is simply because that is the way it is?

rev, unhappy with the apparent freedom from the work of minds that the aether and gravity enjoy, wants to trap some, interrogate it, until it yields its secrets.

:-)

• Can’t something be the way it is simply because that is the way it is?

I don’t think it can…

furious said:

• Can’t something be the way it is simply because that is the way it is?

I don’t think it can…

I think ultimately, it has to.

• I think ultimately, it has to.

Well, yes, I suppose that is correct…

Bubblecar said:

furious said:

• Can’t something be the way it is simply because that is the way it is?

I don’t think it can…

I think ultimately, it has to.

And why should it care? Only humans care because we’re intent on seeing mysteries everywhere.

If there’s some sort of bedrock of reality, it is the way it is because that’s the way things are. There doesn’t need to be any reason, so there’s not really any “mystery”.

>If there’s some sort of bedrock of reality, it is the way it is because that’s the way things are.

I like to mundane things, but there’s a bit of conflict with possibility space.

Not an altogether unfortunate thing.

Humans tend to embrace nothing or everything, to make sense of existence.

Maybe there’s really nothing, and this is what it’s like when it’s left to do its thing.

Or maybe there’s really everything, so we don’t have to wonder about this or that thing in particular.

Or maybe nothing inevitably becomes everything.

But it’s also possible that there are just some particular things, for no important reason.

>Maybe there’s really nothing, and this is what it’s like when it’s left to do its thing

ya get a glimpse is all, and’s maybe counter-ego to resolve I am in great-part or mostly what I don’t know

• Or maybe nothing inevitably becomes everything.

I mean, what have you got to lose?
you know, you come from nothing
you’re going back to nothing
what have you lost? Nothing!

transition said:

>Maybe there’s really nothing, and this is what it’s like when it’s left to do its thing

ya get a glimpse is all, and’s maybe counter-ego to resolve I am in great-part or mostly what I don’t know

We’re barely out of nappies before we die of old age, so it’s not surprising that few of us manage to relate our adventures to the rest of observable reality in any solidly realistic or satisfying way.

We need to extend human lifespans by a huge factor before we can become worthy vessels for the enormous potential of our own minds.

you could say that space is the final frontier. we must be bold.

• you could say that space is the final frontier. we must be bold.

That’s warped…

>We need to extend human lifespans by a huge factor before we can become worthy vessels for the enormous potential of our own minds.

dunno the realities of being fleshy, and the external world so are wearing, that (many) humans live to nearing a century is impressive really. More impressive given there’s more throw-away stuff every day.

i’m happy to leave it to the young ones. Human kids impress me. Sensitive learning machines. Nurturers (of all sorts humans).

if the pace of things, consumerism, and too much doesn’t become about entertainment, I think even a short life’s worth living.

• i’m happy to leave it to the young ones.

furious said:

• i’m happy to leave it to the young ones.

:-)

> We need to extend human lifespans by a huge factor before we can become worthy vessels for the enormous potential of our own minds.

LOL. Human lifetime extension will be by hibernation, or something very similar.

And I really can’t see a hibernating human using the enormous potential of its mind, can you?

Perhaps what we really need to do is extend the lifespans of hardware and software. Hardware lives an average of three years and software even less.

• And I really can’t see a hibernating human using the enormous potential of its mind, can you?

Bubblecar said:

If there’s some sort of bedrock of reality, it is the way it is because that’s the way things are. There doesn’t need to be any reason, so there’s not really any “mystery”.

Upon reading this, I felt as if I’d painted myself into a corner, because in other contexts, I’ve promoted the view that the laws of physics are the way they are for a reason and that they are not arbitrary. But it isn’t an either or situation. Some things have a reason while other things don’t. And I don’t think the things that are with or without reason are themselves without reason. For example, as mentioned the laws of physics have reason, but if the laws of physics can’t decide between different possibilities, then that decision will be without reason. On the other hand, one may have to accept that a reason may differ in nature from what one may expect. Thus, one may consider “symmetry breaking” to be the reason a quantum experiment choses one option over another, but this doesn’t actually help explain why the particular choice was chosen and not the other.

KJW said:

Bubblecar said:

If there’s some sort of bedrock of reality, it is the way it is because that’s the way things are. There doesn’t need to be any reason, so there’s not really any “mystery”.

Upon reading this, I felt as if I’d painted myself into a corner, because in other contexts, I’ve promoted the view that the laws of physics are the way they are for a reason and that they are not arbitrary. But it isn’t an either or situation. Some things have a reason while other things don’t. And I don’t think the things that are with or without reason are themselves without reason. For example, as mentioned the laws of physics have reason, but if the laws of physics can’t decide between different possibilities, then that decision will be without reason. On the other hand, one may have to accept that a reason may differ in nature from what one may expect. Thus, one may consider “symmetry breaking” to be the reason a quantum experiment choses one option over another, but this doesn’t actually help explain why the particular choice was chosen and not the other.

IMHO all things have a reason, if only to occupy a niche.

KJW said:

Bubblecar said:

If there’s some sort of bedrock of reality, it is the way it is because that’s the way things are. There doesn’t need to be any reason, so there’s not really any “mystery”.

Upon reading this, I felt as if I’d painted myself into a corner, because in other contexts, I’ve promoted the view that the laws of physics are the way they are for a reason and that they are not arbitrary. But it isn’t an either or situation. Some things have a reason while other things don’t. And I don’t think the things that are with or without reason are themselves without reason. For example, as mentioned the laws of physics have reason, but if the laws of physics can’t decide between different possibilities, then that decision will be without reason. On the other hand, one may have to accept that a reason may differ in nature from what one may expect. Thus, one may consider “symmetry breaking” to be the reason a quantum experiment choses one option over another, but this doesn’t actually help explain why the particular choice was chosen and not the other.

The word “reason” is ambiguous. I agree that ultimately things are the way they are, and there is no underlying reason that they are that way. If there was there would either have to be reasons all the way down, or some circular path of reasons.

But I am not looking for “reasons” in that sense. I’m just looking for mechanisms. In particular, what is the mechanism by which the path of objects and EMR is affected by distant masses?

Perhaps I should give my definitions for some terms:

Real things are whatever is involved in observable events (directly or indirectly (or perhaps I should say at whatever level of indirectness)).

Mechanisms are a description of observable events that allow those events to be described by a common set of rules applicable to all real things.

The Rev Dodgson said:

KJW said:

Bubblecar said:

If there’s some sort of bedrock of reality, it is the way it is because that’s the way things are. There doesn’t need to be any reason, so there’s not really any “mystery”.

Upon reading this, I felt as if I’d painted myself into a corner, because in other contexts, I’ve promoted the view that the laws of physics are the way they are for a reason and that they are not arbitrary. But it isn’t an either or situation. Some things have a reason while other things don’t. And I don’t think the things that are with or without reason are themselves without reason. For example, as mentioned the laws of physics have reason, but if the laws of physics can’t decide between different possibilities, then that decision will be without reason. On the other hand, one may have to accept that a reason may differ in nature from what one may expect. Thus, one may consider “symmetry breaking” to be the reason a quantum experiment choses one option over another, but this doesn’t actually help explain why the particular choice was chosen and not the other.

The word “reason” is ambiguous. I agree that ultimately things are the way they are, and there is no underlying reason that they are that way. If there was there would either have to be reasons all the way down, or some circular path of reasons.

But I am not looking for “reasons” in that sense. I’m just looking for mechanisms. In particular, what is the mechanism by which the path of objects and EMR is affected by distant masses?

There is always a reason as to why things are as they are. Everything has history that governs their current situation.

there’s be few explorations of the limits of what is understandable of the external world that aren’t a psychological journey

PermeateFree said:

Everything has history that governs their current situation.

But what governs their history?

KJW said:

PermeateFree said:

Everything has history that governs their current situation.

But what governs their history?

Well if you had the capability, you could trace all back to the big bang.

PermeateFree said:

KJW said:

PermeateFree said:

Everything has history that governs their current situation.

But what governs their history?

Well if you had the capability, you could trace all back to the big bang.

But the big bang is low (presumably zero) entropy. It can’t determine the much higher entropy future. In other words, the big bang can’t distinguish between the current future and some other alternative future. Thus, the big bang cannot be the cause of any history.

>Mechanisms are a description of observable events that allow those events to be described by a common set of rules applicable to all real things.

not sure that is entirely reliable.

there maybe ways (of nature, but humans do it too) to somewhat obliterate the causal chain, the evidence seen that is reverse-engineered (so to speak) from. Analysed of the past.

like this universe might have been born/emerged – a bubble – then detached from the physics of its origin. The transformation, or conversion of energy – the new bubble – required of it being a possibility and happening that it did so detach. So the cause and effect chain, when reverse engineered, hits a brick wall, or an apparent nothingness we might call space even.

Mechanisms I might add are real (natural too) physical things, first, from that the concepts of are possible. Like in the geometry of intersecting light/EMR and gravity, for example. There are lots, just of EMR itself I would think.

It strikes me that algorithms might evolve to harden against what your statement suggests.

KJW said:

PermeateFree said:

KJW said:

But what governs their history?

Well if you had the capability, you could trace all back to the big bang.

But the big bang is low (presumably zero) entropy. It can’t determine the much higher entropy future. In other words, the big bang can’t distinguish between the current future and some other alternative future. Thus, the big bang cannot be the cause of any history.

Things begin to form after the big bang, and as they evolve they develop into new things, which then permits something else to develop. Things do not suddenly appear, otherwise they would have been created by a deity and I would be surprised if you were suggesting that.

….It strikes me that algorithms might evolve to harden against what your statement suggests.

in fact evolving complexity (the local negentropy – and related arrow of time) may force a reality that obliterates the realities of its origin, and necessarily so. It’s not running an algorithm that can be reversed (conceptually).

This might interest you Rev

The Fabric of Space-time