Defining Space

[jajrussel]

I thought about just attaching this to my Aether thread to end the Aether thought, so to speak. One thought has led to another. However with the new thought the subject changed enough that I wish to remove Aether from its substance. The new thought is an effort to define space.

There do not seem to be many direct values I can give to space.

1. It can be occupied.

2. We can think of it in terms of volume, which means we can divide it into units of measure.

3. Any other defining value is related to what occupies space.

4. Any observation, of that given volume, can be affected by what occupies space outside our chosen limits of observation.

5. Space is a medium; any energy can occupy and move through unaffected.

 

In a sense this means that space can not warp, it does not move, it has no energy, is not affected by energy. It sounds as if I am saying that space does not exist, but that is not what I am saying. Space is a medium any energy can occupy and move through unaffected. This does not mean that energy won't change direction, only that any change will be the result of energy that already occupies a given volume of space.

It was said in another thread that you can not fire a photon through a conduit tube with a diameter that is smaller than the photon. I believe the statement to be true. The present energy that occupies that space won't allow it. It really doesn't matter what the conduit is made of so long as the present occupying energy has properties that prevent the photon from entering and passing through the space of its interior. We could just as easily be talking about a particle accelerator.

I am not sure that what I have said here completely changes present views of science. It would certainly change concepts of space/time. There would be no folding of space, and no weird time occurrences. The only thing we would be able to warp, bend, or fold would be energy. Present science allows us to explain why a straight path from A to B takes less time than a curved path. We could be talking about me walking, or again a particle moving through a particle accelerator. We could be talking about earth orbiting the sun, or a photon passing an intense gravity body. Some thoughts would change. Most would stay the same.

[michel123456]

That's the kind of question I like: back to the basics.

I have to admit that the more I learn about Space, the less confident I am in what I understand of it.

I think a good way to proceed is to reduce the question to its simplest form.

What is the simplest form of space? To me, it is distance.

If you ask someone, or look in any encyclopedia, about "distance", you will automatically get tautology. See wiki article "Distance is a numerical description of how far apart objects are. In physics or everyday discussion, distance may refer to a physical length, or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two counties over"). In mathematics, a distance function or metric is a generalization of the concept of physical distance. A metric is a function that behaves according to a specific set of rules, and provides a concrete way of describing what it means for elements of some space to be "close to" or "far away from" each other. In most cases, "distance from A to B" is interchangeable with "distance between B and A".

 

_What I have learned about distance, is that in our physical world, you cannot have distance without Time. At the moment you accept that nothing can travel faster than C, any distance corresponds to at least a certain value of time.

_the second thing I have learned about distance, is that it is a kind of obstacle. Newton was asking, how is action at a distance conceivable? Even today, action at a distance is a mystery.

_the third thing I have learned, it that distance is always positive.

_the fourth thing I know, is that geometry rules the way one distance may be related to another. And in geometry, the absolute measurement of distance don't matter much, what matters is the relation that exist between measurements.

 

I don't remember knowing anything else, and it may happen that I am wrong in what I think I know.

Edited November 10, 2010 by michel123456

[jajrussel]

Distance the distance from A to B can be different depending on the path you take, so the number of time intervals taken would also depend on the path, or we can approach the thought from a different angle.

I can paint a dot on the side of a ball 3 inches in diameter, spin the ball in place and calculate the distance the dot traveled. Other than to spin the ball doesnt move, but the dot does. Now we take the ball with the dot pointing up, spin the ball again. Other than to spin neither the ball nor the dot moves. If in both instances we can get the ball to spin in place for 15 seconds we will record two different distances in 15 seconds.

Now we are going to spin the ball two more times, same scenario, but this time we are going to spin the ball at the speed of light. Hopefully it will spin for at least fifteen seconds. Okay, we are going to have to stop the ball after fifteen seconds otherwise this is going to take way too long. So after counting down fifteen seconds for both spins compare the results, pretty much what we expected.

Now we are going to do this same scenario one more time only I will be the dot on the side, you can be the dot on the top and one of the other readers can spin and stop the ball, but remember we are going for light speed. Lets all three count down the fifteen seconds.

I am fairly certain that we three will count in sync, and that neither you nor I will be surprised when the ball stops spinning after fifteen seconds.

Now, you didnt go anywhere, and I went further, and for both of us fifteen seconds went by. So it would appear, as you pointed out, that we can have distance with time, and it would also appear that we can have time without distance, both in a relative way. At the end of fifteen seconds I will be no more than 3 straight line inches from where I started, again in a relative way. Having not done the calculation there is a good chance I will be less than 3 straight line inches away. Having proposed, but not actually having done all these calculations all our answers would have had to do with time and distance, even the straight line distance, however none have actually affected space, but they have told us a little bit about space, distance and time.

Distance in effect is the length of any specific path through space.

If it is agreed that time is limited by the speed of light, and use the metric standard. One second divided by the speed of light gives us the furthest distance we can go in one second using the metric scale. They are effectively linked.

Space is the medium that the dots moved through. Each dot moved a different distance through the medium. Space is not the distance, the medium did not move, it has no energy.

In order to know that something has energy we have to compare it to something that has no energy. In numbers the zero is useful. On a scalar we count the zero as if it is a unit, a starting point with negative numbers going left, and positive numbers going right. In the physical universe there are no negative numbers, you either have something, or you have nothing. We can take nothing and give it volume, but other than a set of coordinates it remains nothing. Usually, were we to add 1 something to our volume of nothing it would assume the value of what we have added, but in truth it is 0+1; Space is the 0; Energy is the 1. Now, again, it sounds like I am saying that Space doesnt exist, but we have to have something to compare energy to. Space is something; it just has different properties compared to energy. So we have 2 things different enough that we can make true comparisons. In order for energy to have any true comparable value we have to compare it to something that has a value of 0 energies. At this point we have little choice, Space is one thing, and Energy is another, or Space is Energy with nothing to compare to, except values based on assigned properties such as volume; we end up losing the 0, and not really knowing what 1 energys is.

Okay, enough of trying to think of Space as nothing. It doesn’t seem to be working, not in the sense that I want it to. It seems I have already, sort of again, started thinking about the possibilities of Space being Energy’s in the forms of what we call the Universe. In this new definition Space is viewed as particles linked through interacting energy waves that affect the particles. In this view it would seem that Space can change with distance and direction thus making the properties very flexible for any given volume of space. There are new questions popping into my head. I need time to think about them. Actually, one of the questions regards Time. It seems to me that some people view time as if it is energy, as if time affects Energy rather than energy affects being the result of Energy’s own properties.

Edited November 12, 2010 by jajrussel