Continuity of space

[petrushka.googol]

Is space really continuous? After all matter is a local distortion of space time which itself is encapsulated energy.

 

Then what is dark matter / dark energy?

[studiot]

 

Is space really continuous?

 

That is a really good and important question for the 21st century that no one knows the answer to. I assume you mean continuous in the mathematical sense.

This question goes to the heart of the difference between quantum theory and relativity/classical physics.

After all matter is a local distortion of space time which itself is encapsulated energy.

 

Then what is dark matter / dark energy?

 

 

 

A pity you added this about fudges, which is all such speculation amounts to.

We do not have enough information to answer this.

[Delta1212]

Dark energy and dark matter are really labels for effects that we observe. They sound like "things" that might cause those effects, but the "dark" part of the name really means "we have no idea what is causing this." That's also the only real thing that dark matter and dark energy have in common.

 

Dark matter refers to the fact that there appears to be more gravity in the universe than we would calculate based on the amount of matter we can see. Hence there must be some "dark matter" that we can't see. Whether it's a completely different type of matter, normal matter that is just hard for us to detect out in space for some reason or other, something completely unlike matter altogether or just a problem with our understanding of how gravity works is pretty much up in the air.

 

Dark energy refers to the fact that not only is the universe expanding, but the expansion appears to be accelerating. "Dark energy" is causing that acceleration, by which we mean that we don't actually know why it's doing that even though we can see that it apparently is.

[mathematic]

One thing we are pretty sure of about dark matter is that it is definitely not ordinary matter. The H1, H2, He4 ratios are consistent with the known concentration of ordinary matter, a little less than 5% of the universe. Dark matter is ~ 25%, and dark energy the rest.