What exactly is nothing?

[Catastrophe]

What exactly is nothing?

It seems that we might be agreed on "nothing", as a word used in common parlance which can mean different things in different contexts. It is best kept well away from the mathematical abstraction of zero. "Exactly" is a word which unnecessarily complicates the question, because of the context dependency.

Cat

 

[voidpotentialenergy]

What exactly is nothing?

It seems that we might be agreed on "nothing", as a word used in common parlance which can mean different things in different contexts. It is best kept well away from the mathematical abstraction of zero. "Exactly" is a word which unnecessarily complicates the question, because of the context dependency.

Cat

Cat hard to say if nothing is reality or not.
At some scale it exists but what is nothing?
Could be the reason for everything or just a need of the universe min size to have nothing.

Fun stuff to think about though

 

[voidpotentialenergy]

I completely agree, sometimes there are excellent theories that, well, I just can't fit with their mathematical point of view.

Yep sometimes it's not bad to put the math away and just take a best guess.
We probably all going to be wrong about reality but a good guess can't hurt

 

[Misha Marchuk]

Yep sometimes it's not bad to put the math away and just take a best guess.
We probably all going to be wrong about reality but a good guess can't hurt

Yes, you are absolutely right and I cannot disagree with you. Sometimes you just need to dream and guess.

 

[saliceha]

"Exactly" is nothing.

 

[Catastrophe]

My apologies for the repetition, but I think you are going to find it difficult to better this as a summary:

It seems that we might be agreed on "nothing", as a word used in common parlance which can mean different things in different contexts. It is best kept well away from the mathematical abstraction of zero. "Exactly" is a word which unnecessarily complicates the question, because of the context dependency.

Cat

 

[Oh_My_Stars]

A good way to mentally process the concept of nothing is to look at the concept of something.

The most basic building block is an Atom. In an atom there is a small of something but an atom is primarily nothing. Nothing is similar to an Atom that has no nucleus or anything to define it.

 

[Catastrophe]

"but an atom is primarily nothing. Nothing is similar to an Atom that has no nucleus or anything to define it."

No, an atom is not "nothing". We differentiate an atom from "empty space",
"Nothing" cannot be similar to something which is not "nothing" - this is just playing with words, and has no relation to reality. It is violating the definition.

Cat

 

[voidpotentialenergy]

A good way to mentally process the concept of nothing is to look at the concept of something.

The most basic building block is an Atom. In an atom there is a small of something but an atom is primarily nothing. Nothing is similar to an Atom that has no nucleus or anything to define it.

I wouldn't say that an atom is made of mostly mothing but the parts that make up an atom are.
3 quarks mark a proton or neutron, they never touch so the area between them is nothing and most of the quark is nothing.
The orbit of the electron in the atom is also mostly nothing, 1 electron in a big orbit.
If anything was in that orbit the orbital mechanics would break down and so would atoms.
The solid world isn't that solid.

Fluctuation is the next step down filling in the universe but it also is mostly nothing with random fluctuations happening all the time but far from filling in nothing.
The big question is.
Is nothing something with properties or is it just the lack of something.

IMO the universe is a small amount of energy with nothing filling between.

 

[Curiosity killed the cat]

probably not verbatim, but the gist of what Einstein said is...

A. Not everything that can be counted counts !
B. Not everything that counts can be counted !

which category would Zero best fit into ?

 

[voidpotentialenergy]

probably not verbatim, but the gist of what Einstein said is...

A. Not everything that can be counted counts !
B. Not everything that counts can be counted !

which category would Zero best fit into ?

I guess we can only guess.
Nothing for sure exists and has some or no properties space/time energy etc.
Or it exists only because smaller doesn't exist and has no properties other than being nothing.
Or nothing might be the reason for everything in it's potential energy or instability.

I think gravity and spooky action are tied to that (nothing) in the fact they can instantly communicate'
No travel involved in doing that if you travel through (nothing) that has no space/time.

 

[Oh_My_Stars]

If you check my bank account balance it should help you comprehend the concept of nothing.

I thought zero was not truly a number and was a concept of nothing. Is this incorrect?

 

[Curiosity killed the cat]

I think gravity and spooky action are tied to that (nothing) in the fact they can instantly communicate'
No travel involved in doing that if you travel through (nothing) that has no space/time.


I must agree!!!
The cosmological constant aka dark energy Is IMO the pseudo physical medium we mistakenly refer to as space-time The dark energy permeates the primordial volume we know as space, but the primordial space itself has no physicality whatsoever, so time and distance, lack meaning in primordial space, I think instantaneous communication is certainly a credible possibility, in what Einstein referred to as … "The nothing which is something."

 

[voidpotentialenergy]

If you check my bank account balance it should help you comprehend the concept of nothing.

I thought zero was not truly a number and was a concept of nothing. Is this incorrect?

A bank account with 0 is still a bank account
How easily nothing can still be something.

 

[voidpotentialenergy]

I think gravity and spooky action are tied to that (nothing) in the fact they can instantly communicate'
No travel involved in doing that if you travel through (nothing) that has no space/time.


I must agree!!!
The cosmological constant aka dark energy Is IMO the pseudo physical medium we mistakenly refer to as space-time The dark energy permeates the primordial volume we know as space, but the primordial space itself has no physicality whatsoever, so time and distance, lack meaning in primordial space, I think instantaneous communication is certainly a credible possibility, in what Einstein referred to as … "The nothing which is something."

Yep as soon as you break the concept of stars, galaxies, black holes etc as the universe and break them down into just the raw energy they really are.
Then it becomes pretty apparent that not that much energy exists in lots of nothing.

Fun to think that traveling through nothing is possible in the universe.
If we could manipulate nothing we probably could also with no brute force in the trip and little or no time going.

 

[Cehunt]

Its really hard to me to even try to define nothing. Its like if someone walked into an empty room and said nothing is there but in reality there is space there which is something. So my question is what would true nothing be like? a place without space or matter?

Nothing is a vacuum. An empty void.

Clive

 

[Catastrophe]

It seems that we might be agreed on "nothing", as a word used in common parlance which can mean different things in different contexts.

There is, quite separately, a mathematical meaning. In mathematics 3-dimensional space is defined as a graph with x, y and z coordinates, A point may be defined by giving x, y and z numbers. That point has no size. It is just a point. You can also write equations to define a volume in this 3-d graph. What is in that volume? Nothing but a collection of mathematical points each with no property whatsoever except three numbers.
That is nothing.

In reality, as pointed out above, any space is filled with gas molecules and maybe other things. It still can be measured mathematically, but it is different from the volume in the graph.

Cat

 

[David-J-Franks]

A quanta orbit is the set location an electron orbits a neutron/proton in an atom.
It is either in location A or B or C etc but can never exist between those orbits.
When an atom decays the electron is instantly in the next set orbit and no partial move happens. (quantum leap)
Orbit, nothing, orbit, nothing etc.

Pretty solid proof that nothing isn't just an imaginary item in the universe but a part of reality with properties.
In fact 99.999+ of the universe is nothing.
JMO

Not enough is known about the nature of space to say that nothing exists in between orbits of electrons . In fact, particles are not the most fundamental elements of reality, particles are an emergent property of quantum Fields. Every particle has a field associated with it, the most famous being the Higgs boson which has the Higgs field associated with it.So, all the particles in an atom all have an associated quantum field with them. The whole atom and all of the space in it may be filled with quantum Fields. but as I say not enough is known about this yet so I don't think you can categorically say it is nothing between the particles.

My personal opinion is that there is no where in the Universe where there is absolutely nothing. I believe it's all completely filled with these mysterious quantum fields.

I would find it strange if Particles and objects could exist on their own surrounded by absolutely nothing. I think everything needs to belong to something more fundamental subsurface or subspace if you like. They need a reason as to why they exist, if they existed surrounded by nothing then there couldn't be a reason for why they existed. In other words it would be like finding a potato without finding the field that it grew in.

That just leaves the question of why are there quantum fields in the first place.

That leads to the famous question;

"Why is there something rather than nothing"

I think that's the hardest question of all, and I don't think we'll ever see an answer to that.

 

[David-J-Franks]

aren't cars made up of mostly nothing? ford for sure.
Does such a thing of as expert on nothing exist?
I think i might have a nothing award but can't find where i put it

One thing is for sure at some scale nothing is the man.
What it does if anything is the question.

Are we the product of nothing and it's inability to stay that way?
Yep crazy thinking takes you down that road of thought

An expert is a person who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing . I guess that makes you an expert

 

[voidpotentialenergy]

Not enough is known about the nature of space to say that nothing exists in between orbits of electrons . In fact, particles are not the most fundamental elements of reality, particles are an emergent property of quantum Fields. Every particle has a field associated with it, the most famous being the Higgs boson which has the Higgs field associated with it.So, all the particles in an atom all have an associated quantum field with them. The whole atom and all of the space in it may be filled with quantum Fields. but as I say not enough is known about this yet so I don't think you can categorically say it is nothing between the particles.

My personal opinion is that there is no where in the Universe where there is absolutely nothing. I believe it's all completely filled with these mysterious quantum fields.

I would find it strange if Particles and objects could exist on their own surrounded by absolutely nothing. I think everything needs to belong to something more fundamental subsurface or subspace if you like. They need a reason as to why they exist, if they existed surrounded by nothing then there couldn't be a reason for why they existed. In other words it would be like finding a potato without finding the field that it grew in.

That just leaves the question of why are there quantum fields in the first place.

That leads to the famous question;

"Why is there something rather than nothing"

I think that's the hardest question of all, and I don't think we'll ever see an answer to that.

A leap law is a leap law.
No % of any leap is allowed saying something about what is between leaps.
1 electron in each giant orbit that is not disturbed in it's orbital mechanics. nor does it gain or loose any energy in it's orbit.

If anything was in the orbital area the electron would loose energy.
Even fluctuation would degrade it.
IMO each leap location possibility is set as location, nothing, location nothing etc so each leap is protected by nothing and so is the orbit location.
Or we end up with a perpetual motion machine of never changing energy of electrons in never degrading orbits.


Fluctuation itself isn't a fill thing of the universe.
Random fluctuation does fill in empty but only on a temp random way.
The 999 out of 1000 times fluctuation is doing nothing?

The king of all i don't see
King 0 LOL

 

[Atlan0001]

Voidpotentialenergy,

The Universe (U) ('1' (and now after all this time I should add, and/or '0')) can't be "nothing at all" unless it is "everything at once". A Big Crunch (or 'Gordian Knot'-like) Vortex ('1') / Big hole (or 'Void'-like) Vacuum ('0').

I was reading where in time black holes eventually inevitably themselves go away in space due to entropy. I'm virtually sure I'm the only one besides you -- and I'm often not sure of you -- that has pushed the timeless void that is space alone as actually being something, the primitive Universe (U), or primordial soup. A few days ago I even started a thread where I said its potential "superconductivity" was being actually being modeled. Its 'hyper-conductivity' was being modeled in "superconductivity"

Entropy then has only one destination, the most primitive state of all, the space state or space-verse. The true beginning state, and timeless. Not only that, it is a state we already observe to exist now... and probably, as 'Void' and 'Vacuum', to have existed for all time. Multiverse's enfolding illustrations of dimensionality point straight to duality as such 'Void' and 'Vacuum'. Not quite "nothingness" except "relatively speaking" in which case it is exactly "nothingness". Really speaking, it is not "nothingness". Relatively speaking, it most certainly is "nothingness"!

 

[voidpotentialenergy]

Voidpotentialenergy,

The Universe (U) ('1' (and now after all this time I should add, and/or '0')) can't be "nothing at all" unless it is "everything at once". A Big Crunch (or 'Gordian Knot'-like) Vortex ('1') / Big hole (or 'Void'-like) Vacuum ('0').

I was reading where in time black holes eventually inevitably themselves go away in space due to entropy. I'm virtually sure I'm the only one besides you -- and I'm often not sure of you -- that has pushed the timeless void that is space alone as actually being something, the primitive Universe (U), or primordial soup. A few days ago I even started a thread where I said its potential "superconductivity" was being actually being modeled. Its 'hyper-conductivity' was being modeled in "superconductivity"

Entropy then has only one destination, the most primitive state of all, the space state or space-verse. The true beginning state, and timeless. Not only that, it is a state we already observe to exist now... and probably, as 'Void' and 'Vacuum', to have existed for all time. Multiverse's enfolding illustrations of dimensionality point straight to duality as such 'Void' and 'Vacuum'. Not quite "nothingness" except "relatively speaking" in which case it is exactly "nothingness". Really speaking, it is not "nothingness". Relatively speaking, it most certainly is "nothingness"!

Distance just a measure of point A to B.
If point A and B have no substance between them what is distance?

Very difficult to define an area under those conditions.
We can't say how big the universe is other than our perception at whatever speed the universe might be traveling (unknown).
Galaxies travel why not the entire universe is traveling?

We could be living in a universe that is no bigger than a dot or an infinite size universe.
Who can guess

 

[David-J-Franks]

A leap law is a leap law.
No % of any leap is allowed saying something about what is between leaps.
1 electron in each giant orbit that is not disturbed in it's orbital mechanics. nor does it gain or loose any energy in it's orbit.

If anything was in the orbital area the electron would loose energy.
Even fluctuation would degrade it.
IMO each leap location possibility is set as location, nothing, location nothing etc so each leap is protected by nothing and so is the orbit location.
Or we end up with a perpetual motion machine of never changing energy of electrons in never degrading orbits.


Fluctuation itself isn't a fill thing of the universe.
Random fluctuation does fill in empty but only on a temp random way.
The 999 out of 1000 times fluctuation is doing nothing?

The king of all i don't see
King 0 LOL

No % of any leap is allowed saying something about what is between leaps.
1 electron in each giant orbit that is not disturbed in it's orbital mechanics. nor does it gain or loose any energy in it's orbit.

If anything was in the orbital area the electron would loose energy.
Even fluctuation would degrade it.

I don't think "No % of any leap" proves anything one way or another. For a start, l think there must be a strong electric (electromagnetic) field between the negative electron and the positive nucleus, also, since electrons have mass, there must be a Higgs field in the space to give them mass.

The following is a quote from the director of Fermilab. He says that the Higgs field does not impede the motion of particles.

"For example, the Higgs field is much weirder than the comparisons with molasses or crowds suggest, since it does not actually drag or impede particles, but still somehow shares its mass with them."

Article - What fills space ?;

Fermilab Today

There might be a gravitational field in that space too? Does gravity stop at the edge of an atom or does it go right through? Gravity doesn't impede motion much, the earth has been going around the sun for ~ 4.6 billion years (not sure about frame dragging though).

On top of all the above there could be other fields through that space which I don't know about. The point is that a particle being in a field need not necessarily be impeded by it.

So, for now I'm just going to stick with the statement I made in the post above and that is;

"My personal opinion is that there is nowhere in the Universe where there is absolutely nothing. I believe it's all completely filled with these mysterious quantum fields."

Of course a lot of the above is just my opinion (but not all of it ). When you say there is nothing in the space between the electron and the nucleus, is that likewise just your opinion or do you have any evidence to support that claim?

Fluctuation itself isn't a fill thing of the universe.
Random fluctuation does fill in empty but only on a temp random way.
The 999 out of 1000 times fluctuation is doing nothing?

You mention fluctuation a lot in your posts, you seem to treat fluctuation as something fundamental in itself. However, fluctuation means changing or varying between different states of 'something'. So surely it is the 'something' that is fluctuating that is the most fundamental "fill thing of the universe". So, in your ideas, what is it that is fluctuating? and does this 'something' also permeate through atoms or does it stop at the edge of them?

 

[David-J-Franks]

Distance just a measure of point A to B.
If point A and B have no substance between them what is distance?

Very difficult to define an area under those conditions.
We can't say how big the universe is other than our perception at whatever speed the universe might be traveling (unknown).
Galaxies travel why not the entire universe is traveling?

We could be living in a universe that is no bigger than a dot or an infinite size universe.
Who can guess

If point A and B have no substance between them what is distance?

I think it would be more meaningful to ask what is the distance between two objects rather than two points. Since objects have a size relative to us, it would immediately become apparent what the distance between the objects is. It is simply a ratio between the size of the object and how many objects you can fit in the space between them. It's irrelevant whether that space is void or not. You can then talk about the distance between points with a standardised measurement relative to us or common objects. I think an inch was at one time defined as the length of three barley seeds end to end?

 

[voidpotentialenergy]

I don't think "No % of any leap" proves anything one way or another. For a start, l think there must be a strong electric (electromagnetic) field between the negative electron and the positive nucleus, also, since electrons have mass, there must be a Higgs field in the space to give them mass.

The following is a quote from the director of Fermilab. He says that the Higgs field does not impede the motion of particles.

"For example, the Higgs field is much weirder than the comparisons with molasses or crowds suggest, since it does not actually drag or impede particles, but still somehow shares its mass with them."

Article - What fills space ?;

Fermilab Today

There might be a gravitational field in that space too? Does gravity stop at the edge of an atom or does it go right through? Gravity doesn't impede motion much, the earth has been going around the sun for ~ 4.6 billion years (not sure about frame dragging though).

On top of all the above there could be other fields through that space which I don't know about. The point is that a particle being in a field need not necessarily be impeded by it.

So, for now I'm just going to stick with the statement I made in the post above and that is;

"My personal opinion is that there is nowhere in the Universe where there is absolutely nothing. I believe it's all completely filled with these mysterious quantum fields."

Of course a lot of the above is just my opinion (but not all of it ). When you say there is nothing in the space between the electron and the nucleus, is that likewise just your opinion or do you have any evidence to support that claim?


You mention fluctuation a lot in your posts, you seem to treat fluctuation as something fundamental in itself. However, fluctuation means changing or varying between different states of 'something'. So surely it is the 'something' that is fluctuating that is the most fundamental "fill thing of the universe". So, in your ideas, what is it that is fluctuating? and does this 'something' also permeate through atoms or does it stop at the edge of them?

All possible that fundamental properties of the universe keep an electron in orbit at set locations in n atoms orbit.
More difficult to guess at why electrons don't degrade orbits, never loose or gain energy.
When you try to pin down the location of the electron it proves impossible.

Fluctuation IMO is just a balance act of potential energy.
Creating particles then almost instantly removing them and that is probably fine energy balance properties of fluctuation.
Before fluctuation became balanced it probably created stable particles until that energy balance was reached.
That could be a very simple reason why we now have conservation of energy.

The reason for fluctuation?
IMO either a potential energy of nothing or instability of nothing.

Everything from nothing sounds crazy but breaking down what the universe is and it's hidden amounts of nothing already it isn't a giant leap to imagine a property of nothing was the start.