Space the new Atom?

[A. BETTIK]

I hear about how gravity bends space and how the expansion of the Universe is not so much the stuff in it radiating out from the big band, but the actual creation of more space everywhere.

So where is the real space then against which this twisty, bendy, everywhere increasing lattice work acts?

Is 'space' to become the misnomer 'atom' is?

 

[Red Five]

I'd really like to see where this thread goes, but I have no idea how to answer that question.

 

[NEWDOC2002]

This might turn into a "Can you wrap you head around infinity?" type discussion. Good Luck.

 

[mia1994]

The word "space" is actually not very descriptive. The universe isn't expanding into void, nor is "new" space appearing out of nowhere. The universe isn't "growing" so much as the things in the universe are getting further apart. It is hard to be more descriptive than that with the information that we have.

Relativity suggests rather strongly that space, time, energy and mass are just one big thing. Mass IS energy and mass defines dimensionality. It is quite possible that without matter there is no spacetime.

 

[X-Ray_Horn]

Hasn't a twist on this been the posit of many a stoner? Isn't it a scene in Animal House?

 

[mia1994]

Yeah... cosmology has grown a lot since the early 80s, but the questions of what lays beyond is still there.

I love cosmology, it is a lot of fun and the implications of Special Relativity are a real kick in the pants. Once you've accepted the constancy of light, the logic of it is almost indisputable, but it paints a very strange universe indeed.

 

[madscientist]

whoa.

 

[ADMIRALSTOCKDALE]

i can't feel my brain

 

[Math Mudrat]