Hypothetical "Spaceless" Universe

[Anchovyforestbane]

Based on humanity's current scientific understanding:

If the entire universe, every single planck, even what is now empty space, was somehow converted into a single type of fermion, what would happen? What would happen differently if it were a different kind of fermion? Additionally, what would happen if it were a combination of different fermions, and how would the results differ between combinations? Would it be possible for any conceivable form of life to arise in this new universe? If so, how would the aforementioned variations effect this?

[MigL]

All depends.

56 minutes ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

single planck

As far as I know Max Planck was married; not single.
Or do you mean a wood plank ?

A Planck length is a specific unit of length determined by the distance light travels in the unit of time called the Planck time.
Which Planck did you mean ?

Other than that your question is completely non-sensical.
We expect better.

Edited November 17, 2020 by MigL

[Anchovyforestbane]

5 minutes ago, MigL said:

A Planck length is a specific unit of length determined by the distance light travels in the unit of time called the Planck time.
Which Planck did you mean ?

Other than that your question is completely non-sensical.
We expect better.

I know what the Planck length and Planck instant are. I did not mean a 1 to 1 correspondence of planck to fermion; that would indeed be nonsensical. What I meant was, every single planck of empty space occupied by fermions.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Anchovyforestbane

[MigL]

So you think asking
"What would be the scientific consequences of magic ?"
is a well posed question ?

[Anchovyforestbane]

11 minutes ago, MigL said:

So you think asking
"What would be the scientific consequences of magic ?"
is a well posed question ?

If you'd like to propose that the circumstances preceding such an event is directly related to the consequences thereafter, you could simply say that.
Let's follow that string of thought; say this were caused by a sudden interaction of the branes composing our universe with a hypothetical "something else". What must be the scientific properties of this "something else"?

[MigL]

This is science fiction, not science.

57 minutes ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

a sudden interaction of the branes composing our universe with a hypothetical "something else". What must be the scientific properties of this "something else"?

What ver you wish it to be.

[Area54]

2 hours ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

Based on humanity's current scientific understanding:

If the entire universe, every single planck, even what is now empty space, was somehow converted into a single type of fermion, what would happen? What would happen differently if it were a different kind of fermion? Additionally, what would happen if it were a combination of different fermions, and how would the results differ between combinations? Would it be possible for any conceivable form of life to arise in this new universe? If so, how would the aforementioned variations effect this?

I presume you are trying to initiate a mind experiment. What is the goal of this experiment? If we knew that it might make the question look less nonsensical. (By the way if you were the member who gave a -1 to @MigL that was both undeserved and unhelpful. I've countered it, on your behalf.)

[Anchovyforestbane]

1 minute ago, Area54 said:

I presume you are trying to initiate a mind experiment. What is the goal of this experiment? If we knew that it might make the question look less nonsensical.

You are correct. I wouldn't say it has a specific goal, but the purpose is to contemplate the potential properties of hypothetical physical influences we aren't used to, and how they might effect physical influences we are used to. 

8 minutes ago, Area54 said:

(By the way if you were the member who gave a -1 to @MigL that was both undeserved and unhelpful. I've countered it, on your behalf.)

Undeserved and unhelpful were his contributions to the topic, hence the downvote.

[zapatos]

8 minutes ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

...the purpose is to contemplate the potential properties of hypothetical physical influences we aren't used to...

What are the properties of these physical influences? How do they interact with each other? How do they interact with existing 'physical influences'? Do they interact with existing 'physical influences'? What exactly is a "hypothetical something else"?

Unless you provide some detail, your question is on a par with "What would happen if Person A met Person B at Place C while Fact D was changing from one thing to another"?

[Anchovyforestbane]

31 minutes ago, zapatos said:

What are the properties of these physical influences? How do they interact with each other? How do they interact with existing 'physical influences'? Do they interact with existing 'physical influences'? What exactly is a "hypothetical something else"?

Unless you provide some detail, your question is on a par with "What would happen if Person A met Person B at Place C while Fact D was changing from one thing to another"?

The purpose of the concept is to collectively explore the possible answers to precisely those questions. 

[Area54]

19 hours ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

You are correct. I wouldn't say it has a specific goal, but the purpose is to contemplate the potential properties of hypothetical physical influences we aren't used to, and how they might effect physical influences we are used to. 

Well, that's an improvement on your OP. However, as @zapatos has pointed out it is still much to vague to do anything with. That is why the contribution from @MigL was valuable. It highlighted, if you had been willing to pay attention, that your OP had all the appearance of garbled nonsense. I've confirmed that view and zapatos has reiniforced it. Time for you to ante up something of value that is perceived as such by others, not just by yourself.

[swansont]

22 hours ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

 every single planck of empty space occupied by fermions.

That still makes no sense. A planck is not a unit of space.(length, area or volume)

 

20 hours ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

You are correct. I wouldn't say it has a specific goal, but the purpose is to contemplate the potential properties of hypothetical physical influences we aren't used to, and how they might effect physical influences we are used to. 

You need to fill in the detail of this hypothetical influence.

Right now you are doing the equivalent of asking "What's the difference between a duck?"

[Anchovyforestbane]

1 hour ago, Area54 said:

Well, that's an improvement on your OP. However, as @zapatos has pointed out it is still much to vague to do anything with. That is why the contribution from @MigL was valuable. It highlighted, if you had been willing to pay attention, that your OP had all the appearance of garbled nonsense. I've confirmed that view and zapatos has reiniforced it. 

The OP itself is what provides specification to what you've quoted. If such behaviors described in the OP took place under aforementioned unfamiliar influences, what could we deduce to be the hypothetical properties of said influence? That is the question which I'm attempting to discuss.

 

 

1 hour ago, Area54 said:

Time for you to ante up something of value that is perceived as such by others, not just by yourself.

I have plenty of submissions here which are more relevent/consequential than this, if that's what you mean by "value". If you'd rather be engaged in those, I'd be happy to discuss them.

 

 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

That still makes no sense. A planck is not a unit of space.(length, area or volume)

Semantics, I'd say..
I simply mean to say all space occupied. No unit of space with room left; even those only a planck in length, width, or height. 

 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Right now you are doing the equivalent of asking "What's the difference between a duck?"

It's more akin to "Something previously unobserved is happening to this duck. According to what we can see of the duck and what we know about ducks, what could be causing this bizarre phenomenon?"

[zapatos]

How about this? You start with telling us what you think would happen "If the entire universe, every single planck, even what is now empty space, was somehow converted into a single type of fermion". That might clear things up a bit.

[Area54]

6 minutes ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

The OP itself is what provides specification to what you've quoted.

That is not evident. The OP is word salad. I imagine you have an idea, important to you and possibly of general interest, but until you improve your ability to communicate that idea we shall be running in circles. You can continue to reject that, thinking that you are writing clearly and umabiguously, but that leads nowhere.

 

9 minutes ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

I have plenty of submissions here which are more relevent/consequential than this, if that's what you mean by "value". If you'd rather be engaged in those, I'd be happy to discuss them.

Such of those posts I have seen seem to suffer from the same problem. Until your posts combine clarity, relevance and purpose I shall merely point this out to you in the hope you can improve. Only then will I know if I have something on topic to contribute. In the meantime Zapatos makes a good suggestion.

[swansont]

14 minutes ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

Semantics, I'd say..
I simply mean to say all space occupied. No unit of space with room left; even those only a planck in length, width, or height.  

That doesn't help. There is no unit of space. "All space is occupied" is meaningless. "A planck in length, width, or height" ignores my objection that a planck isn't a unit, and simply repeats the error. 

 

14 minutes ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

It's more akin to "Something previously unobserved is happening to this duck. According to what we can see of the duck and what we know about ducks, what could be causing this bizarre phenomenon?"

But you haven't adequately described what is happening. It's an open-ended proposition. Basically "hey, what if stuff happens?"

You need to narrow the conditions and provide more detail. I'm not the only one pointing this out. 

 

 

[Anchovyforestbane]

13 minutes ago, zapatos said:

How about this? You start with telling us what you think would happen "If the entire universe, every single planck, even what is now empty space, was somehow converted into a single type of fermion". That might clear things up a bit.

I hypothesize that the Higgs field would almost immediately be thrown out of its vacuum state, and vacuum decay would begin acting upon spacetime. Meanwhile the Coulomb repulsion would be so intense that, as photons are emitted from the fermions' rapid drop in energy levels, the kinetic energy would be high enough for the bosons to fuse and produce antifermions. Whether all this plays out as described, however, or what would happen afterwards if it did, depends on exactly how intensely spacetime geodesics are thrown out of whack. The thing is, I haven't the mathematical knowledge to determine this as of the time of writing, hence my attempt at discussing it with others.
And even if I did, it all depends on whatever influence caused this to transpire. The properties this influence must possess to accomplished what has been detailed, could possibly change much more than what has been detailed; and if it does, it would also change the immediate consequence. 

 

 

26 minutes ago, Area54 said:

That is not evident. The OP is word salad. I imagine you have an idea, important to you and possibly of general interest, but until you improve your ability to communicate that idea we shall be running in circles. You can continue to reject that, thinking that you are writing clearly and umabiguously, but that leads nowhere.

 

Such of those posts I have seen seem to suffer from the same problem. Until your posts combine clarity, relevance and purpose I shall merely point this out to you in the hope you can improve. Only then will I know if I have something on topic to contribute.

I see. How is it I should improve to more efficiently articulate myself?

 

 

19 minutes ago, swansont said:

That doesn't help. There is no unit of space. "All space is occupied" is meaningless. "A planck in length, width, or height" ignores my objection that a planck isn't a unit, and simply repeats the error. 

Except a planck is a unit. A unit of length equal to how far light travels in a single instant... an "instant" being how long it takes for light to travel a single planck in distance. They are the fundamental units of spacetime.

 

22 minutes ago, swansont said:

But you haven't adequately described what is happening. It's an open-ended proposition. Basically "hey, what if stuff happens?"

You need to narrow the conditions and provide more detail. I'm not the only one pointing this out. 

I could simply be misunderstanding you, that or you're misunderstanding me, but was the event in question not the subject of the OP?

[MigL]

1 hour ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

Except a planck is a unit. A unit of length equal to how far light travels in a single instant... an "instant" being how long it takes for light to travel a single planck in distance. They are the fundamental units of spacetime.

No.
Planck is a descriptor of a unit, as in Planck length, Planck time or Planck energy.
A Planck length unit is the distance light travels in a Planck time unit.
This was pointed out to you yesterday at 12:50 pm; what exactly is an 'instant' ????

 

1 hour ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

hypothesize that the Higgs field would almost immediately be thrown out of its vacuum state, and vacuum decay would begin acting upon spacetime. Meanwhile the Coulomb repulsion would be so intense that, as photons are emitted from the fermions' rapid drop in energy levels, the kinetic energy would be high enough for the bosons to fuse and produce antifermions. Whether all this plays out as described, however, or what would happen afterwards if it did, depends on exactly how intensely spacetime geodesics are thrown out of whack. The thing is, I haven't the mathematical knowledge to determine this as of the time of writing, hence my attempt at discussing it with others.
And even if I did, it all depends on whatever influence caused this to transpire. The properties this influence must possess to accomplished what has been detailed, could possibly change much more than what has been detailed; and if it does, it would also change the immediate consequence. 

 The universe is almost all empty space.
Packing the universe with fermions would not result in vacuum decay, rather gravitational collapse of the whole universe, as you've increased its mass-energy density immensely.
Where would all this extra mass-energy come from ?
What other effects would the source of all this added mass-energy produce ?
And again, how is this different from science fiction, if you can pull any effect, or phenomenon, out of your a*s ?

[Ghideon]

1 hour ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

I hypothesize that the Higgs field would almost immediately be thrown out of its vacuum state, and vacuum decay would begin acting upon spacetime. Meanwhile the Coulomb repulsion would be so intense that, as photons are emitted from the fermions' rapid drop in energy levels, the kinetic energy would be high enough for the bosons to fuse and produce antifermions. Whether all this plays out as described, however, or what would happen afterwards if it did, depends on exactly how intensely spacetime geodesics are thrown out of whack.

Here is some rather naive reasoning since I have limited understanding of what you actually try to discuss:

On 11/17/2020 at 5:56 PM, Anchovyforestbane said:

the entire universe

Can we use less than entire universe? If so, how about a star in the processor collapsing to a black hole? At some point in time* during that process there are a lot of particles in a small volume of space. If we look at one piece of matter inside that dense mass, will it have the properties you wish to analyse? If so, does the current mainstream theories answer your questions?

 

*) before reaching a point where current theories stops to be applicable but after reaching neutron degeneracy pressure.

[Area54]

2 hours ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

I see. How is it I should improve to more efficiently articulate myself?

I've given your post a +1, since this comment is the most positive content I have seen in your threads. You acknowledge that you need to improve and you ask for help to do so. Excellent.

Now the onus is on me (and hopefully others) to give you specific guidance. Where to begin? Here are some things you could try:

• Make no assumptions about the extent of other people's knowledge
• Provide details, but make sure you organise those details. Don't throw them down as they occur to you, but think about the best way to present them.
• Use short sentences,
• Avoid complicated English. Example: you said "How is it I should improve to more efficiently articulate myself." Firstly, "improve" and "more efficiently articulate" are the same. You don't need both and including both makes the sentence more difficult to understand. Secondly, "more effciently articulate" is flowery. Why not say, "How can I write more clearly?
• Edit. Then edit again. Wait fifteen minutes. Edit again.

If you wish I can comment on future posts. This can be by pm, if you prefer.

[Anchovyforestbane]

50 minutes ago, MigL said:

No.
Planck is a descriptor of a unit, as in Planck length, Planck time or Planck energy.
A Planck length unit is the distance light travels in a Planck time unit.
This was pointed out to you yesterday at 12:50 pm; what exactly is an 'instant' ????

I'm not sure where exactly we disagree? You're describing the same thing as me, but simultaneously telling me my description is incorrect.

 

 

53 minutes ago, MigL said:

 The universe is almost all empty space.

Even much of what we consider matter is empty space, in fact. On a cosmic scale, there is almost nothing but a bunch of quantum foaming.

 

 

56 minutes ago, MigL said:

Packing the universe with fermions would not result in vacuum decay, rather gravitational collapse of the whole universe, as you've increased its mass-energy density immensely.
Where would all this extra mass-energy come from ?
What other effects would the source of all this added mass-energy produce ?

If there were an external influence capable of phenomenon such as this, there is no way that it could introduce such a vast quantity of mass without an uncontrollable spike in the Higgs field's energy distribution. This would throw the Higgs field out of metastability, all the potential energy therein would cascade into kinetic energy, causing every known thing to rapidly drop to the lowest possible energy state. In a situation such as this, it would be more or less unavoidable. 

 

 

1 hour ago, MigL said:

And again, how is this different from science fiction, if you can pull any effect, or phenomenon, out of your a*s ?

I don't deny that a quantum physics event such as this is unlikely to actually happen, but I've already expressed the point of this topic and its introduction of unclassified influences into existing ones. 

I'm not sure why you're being so aggressive; it feels like you're trying to have an argument, whereas I'm simply trying to have a fascinating discussion.

 

46 minutes ago, Ghideon said:

Here is some rather naive reasoning since I have limited understanding of what you actually try to discuss:

Can we use less than entire universe? If so, how about a star in the processor collapsing to a black hole? At some point in time* during that process there are a lot of particles in a small volume of space. If we look at one piece of matter inside that dense mass, will it have the properties you wish to analyse? If so, does the current mainstream theories answer your questions?

 

*) before reaching a point where current theories stops to be applicable but after reaching neutron degeneracy pressure.

If we had a specimen from each of these scenarios, they would be very similar in many ways. However, the concept behind the question involves influences of a universal scale. It's less the properties of the maximally compact matter (although that is a great topic for discussion by itself), and more about how it and the influences preceding it would effect physics as we know it.

 

 

44 minutes ago, Area54 said:

Here are some things you could try:

• Make no assumptions about the extent of other people's knowledge
• Provide details, but make sure you organise those details. Don't throw them down as they occur to you, but think about the best way to present them.
• Use short sentences,
• Avoid complicated English. Example: you said "How is it I should improve to more efficiently articulate myself." Firstly, "improve" and "more efficiently articulate" are the same. You don't need both and including both makes the sentence more difficult to understand. Secondly, "more effciently articulate" is flowery. Why not say, "How can I write more clearly?
• Edit. Then edit again. Wait fifteen minutes. Edit again.

I thank you for the assistance help. It makes sense that these would be the problems; I didn't talk to many people growing up, so I learned most of my language habits from the science I read, making it pretty easy (especially in a scientific setting) to speak without simplifying.

[swansont]

3 hours ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

Except a planck is a unit. A unit of length equal to how far light travels in a single instant... an "instant" being how long it takes for light to travel a single planck in distance. They are the fundamental units of spacetime.

That’s the planck length, and planck time. Not “a planck”

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

[MigL]

52 minutes ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

I'm not sure why you're being so aggressive; it feels like you're trying to have an argument, whereas I'm simply trying to have a fascinating discussion.

My apologies if I've given you that impression.
Science, and Physics in particular, is almost as exact as mathematics.
Physicists don't usually go on 'flights of fancy' and say things like ...

55 minutes ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

This would throw the Higgs field out of metastability, all the potential energy therein would cascade into kinetic energy, causing every known thing to rapidly drop to the lowest possible energy state. In a situation such as this, it would be more or less unavoidable. 

because you haven't proposed a mechanism, or reason, for this to happen.
It is simply a WAG.

57 minutes ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

I'm not sure where exactly we disagree?

Planck denotes scale. It can be compared to a descriptor like 'centi' or 'kilo'.
A Planck unit of length implies it is measured at the Planck scale, and related to other Planck scale units ( of time, energy, mass, etc. ).
Do you understand now, what I mean by Physics is very exact ?
To a Physicist, what you said is meaningless.

1 hour ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

I don't deny that a quantum physics event such as this is unlikely to actually happen, but I've already expressed the point of this topic and its introduction of unclassified influences into existing ones. 

Not just 'unlikely'.
It is an ill-posed question akin to asking "What happens when you move faster than the speed of light ?".
As far a Physics is concerned, that is impossible.
Just as impossible as introducing enough energy into the universe fo fill all of it with massive particles.

Any answer I could possibly give you will not be based on known Physics, but will be based on my 'imagination' or a WAG.
Similarly, any answers you get from Ghideon, Area54 or Swansont, will be totally different, and based on their 'imaginations'.
So what you are really doing here, is not real science, but 'imaginary science', or guessing, otherwise known as science fiction.
Hope I've clarified my comments enough so that you don't perceive them as aggressive  .

Maybe take Zapatos' comments seriously, and tighten up the conditions of your thought experiment, so that you can get meaningful results from the resulting discussion.

[Anchovyforestbane]

18 hours ago, MigL said:

because you haven't proposed a mechanism, or reason, for this to happen.

It is simply a WAG.

There is a reason for it to happen in this circumstance. The Higgs field is in a false vacuum state: that is to say, it mimics the effects of being in the lowest energy state, while what it's really doing is building up potential energy. When if there were to be a sudden spike in the Higgs field's energy distribution, for example a sudden surge of mass and the energy that would need to come with it, all that potential energy would be released as kinetic energy, hurling everything that has mass into its lowest possible energy state. However, as I've said, this might not even happen depending on the properties of the unforeseen influence. 

 

 

18 hours ago, MigL said:

Planck denotes scale. It can be compared to a descriptor like 'centi' or 'kilo'.
A Planck unit of length implies it is measured at the Planck scale, and related to other Planck scale units ( of time, energy, mass, etc. ).
Do you understand now, what I mean by Physics is very exact ?
To a Physicist, what you said is meaningless.

"I lifted 85 kilos at the gym yesterday."

"I just ran 7 kilos this morning."

Both of these sentences make sense, and it wouldn't make much sense to assume the former meant anything other than kilograms, or that the latter meant anything other than kilometers. Likewise, it isn't really reasonable to have assumed I meant anything but the Planck length.

 

19 hours ago, MigL said:

Not just 'unlikely'.
It is an ill-posed question akin to asking "What happens when you move faster than the speed of light ?".
As far a Physics is concerned, that is impossible.
Just as impossible as introducing enough energy into the universe fo fill all of it with massive particles.

Any answer I could possibly give you will not be based on known Physics, but will be based on my 'imagination' or a WAG.
Similarly, any answers you get from Ghideon, Area54 or Swansont, will be totally different, and based on their 'imaginations'.
So what you are really doing here, is not real science, but 'imaginary science', or guessing, otherwise known as science fiction.

Doesn't all theoretical physics begin with imagination? Granted, if nothing like this were to ever happen then it might be more aptly described as "Philosophical Physics", but the principle remains. 

[MigL]

9 hours ago, Anchovyforestbane said:

There is a reason for it to happen in this circumstance. The Higgs field is in a false vacuum state: that is to say, it mimics the effects of being in the lowest energy state, while what it's really doing is building up potential energy. When if there were to be a sudden spike in the Higgs field's energy distribution, for example a sudden surge of mass and the energy that would need to come with it, all that potential energy would be released as kinetic energy, hurling everything that has mass into its lowest possible energy state. However, as I've said, this might not even happen depending on the properties of the unforeseen influence. 

The Higgs field is not in a false vacuum state.
Vacuum energy is possibly at a false zero state.

But if you add energy to the vacuum so as to enable particles to 'pop' into existence throughout the universe, you have effectively raised the vacuum energy to levels not seen since the Electroweak era ( before the Higgs field was manifest ), and possibly even before the GUT era ( where Color/strong force separated from the Electroweak ).
The fall from these high vacuum energy levels, through symmetry breaks and intermediate false energy plateaus, is opposite to what you describe happening.