Planck's Constant (was something else)

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At 12:25 AM 6/24/99 -0700, you wrote:

>WL

>>As far as the 'edge' of space, no, you won't reach a wall.  You're thinking

>>flat.... the usual analogy is to picture a sphere, like the Earth.  You

>travel far

>>enough in one direction, you come back to your starting point.  There are no

>>boundaries, but the sphere is still a finite area with a finite volume.  Now -

>>extend the analogy into more dimensions.  If the universe is a

>'hypersphere' and

>>you travel far enough in one direction in space, you will come back to your

>>starting point.  The universe has no boundaries, but still has a finite volume

>>that twists back on itself, just as the finite area of the sphere twisted

>back on

>>itself.

>

>TILL

>I've heard this analogy, of course, but it explains nothing to me.  A sphere

>is not without boundaries and volume.  Outside of a sphere there is

>something, so if space is a sphere, it is a sphere that is in what?  In

>other words, what is outside of the sphere?

>

>I realize that I am violating my own request to stay on topic, but

>long-timers on the list know that eventually some theist is going to come

>along to start recycling questions about how the universe could exist

>without having been created. Time and space inevitably become part of those

>discussions.   I'm trying to have something explained about time and space

>that I freely admit that I don't understand.  At least, I don't understand

>the explanations that I have read in articles and books on physics.  I don't

>want to sound like Terry, but I find explanations like WL's above to be

>"unsatisfactory."  To me, it seems very sensible to think that if all of the

>matter in the universe suddenly ceased to exist, space would still

>necessarily exist.  So why wouldn't it be the case that it is just

>impossible for "nothing" to exist?


BRUCE
Why does "space" necessarily have to be "something"?  I think that is one of
the stumbling blocks, since we have problems conceiving "nothing" as being
just that, "nothing."  Why can there not simply be a void that is a complete
vacuum for which the expanding universe expands into?  We think of "space"
as being something, and in fact it is, since even "space" within the
universe is not without matter in many forms.  So we should not even think
in terms of space, but rather a void.  For example, suppose cosmologists are
correct and the universe is 15 billion years old and it all started with the
big bang.  Now why would it be unreasonable to conceive that somewhere out
there, beyond space, there is simply a "void," pure vacuum, and neither
light, nor a particulate, nor an atom, nor even an electron has yet reached?
Moreover, why must there have only been one big bang?  There might be big
bangs happening all the time, but we just don't know it.  I personally think
15 billion years is far too small a number, considering whay may lie beyond
the edges of our expanding universe.  In fact, I'm thinking it's trillions
of years old.

Granted, this does not solve the problem of how matter for a big bang could
suddenly appear within a void, but it does help with conceptualizing
nothingness.  In the end it's probably just an unsolvable puzzle that
boggles the mind.

Here's one for you though:  has the atom itself, and its structural
components, evolved over time?  Perhaps that could have something to do with
this mysterious "dark matter"?

Regards,

Bruce Monson   

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