Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: neilep on 18/05/2008 21:02:29
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Hi Peeps Of Academic Klevernus
See this planet called Earth ?
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Nice eh ?...being delivered Tuesday !
Say I could click my fingers and make it disappear just like that !.......what would be left before space rushed in and filled the gap !! ?
This really consumes me on a Sunday night !!
Plenty of space in my head to receive your answers !!
Hugs and shmishes
Neil
Earth Disappearing Enquirer
xxxxxxxxx
mwah mwah mwah !!
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There are two possible scenarios how the earth could disappear in a flash one it could be swallowed by a large wandering black hole which would look just the same before and after it had swallowed it.
Or it could be converted into radiation by some as yet unknown process which would quickly leave the scene.
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Thank You SYHPRUM
I appreciate your very interesting answers, but , (humour me )....hypothetically.....say the Earth just vanished.....what what be left before the gap was filled ?
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Hi Neil
Don't worry i understand what you mean,we non intellectual types think alike.
For space to rush in then then matter would not be able to reside in the same place as space at the same time for the space to be left if the earth were to disappear for space to rush in if you get what i mean or whhat neil means i think. [;D] so can i go a bit further and try my best to confuse the issue [;)]
For something like the fabric of space to flow through something does there need to be gaps for it to flow through
Does space the fabric of space permeate through all matter, through the gaps inside and outside and between the atoms and if so or even if not so :) does it permeate through the smallest of things that make up matter like quarks and leptons. If it does permeate through quarks would that mean that quarks are made from smaller things allowing gaps for space to flow through .
I feel all spaced out now.
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Hi Neil
Don't worry i understand what you mean,we non intellectual types think alike.
For space to rush in then then matter would not be able to reside in the same place as space at the same time for the space to be left if the earth were to disappear for space to rush in if you get what i mean or whhat neil means i think. [;D] so can i go a bit further and try my best to confuse the issue [;)]
For something like the fabric of space to flow through something does there need to be gaps for it to flow through
Does space the fabric of space permeate through all matter, through the gaps inside and outside and between the atoms and if so or even if not so :) does it permeate through the smallest of things that make up matter like quarks and leptons. If it does permeate through quarks would that mean that quarks are made from smaller things allowing gaps for space to flow through .
I feel all spaced out now.
Me too !!.....and THANK YOU MICHAEL !
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You really do pick em, sometimes!
I could give you a 'graduated' answer, starting with a Classical approach.
Consider what would happen to things around the Earth - say the Moon.
If someone dragged the Earth away slowly, the moon would be pulled away with it and would carry on in its Earth orbit, more or less as before.
If someone dragged it away with an acceleration greater than its corresponding G field near the Moon, the moon would 'slip out of Earth orbit', and be left behind, continuing around the Sun, in some sort of orbit.
The faster (higher the acceleration) with which the earth was pulled away, the less time it would have to affect the Moon's orbit and, in the limit, the moon would be left, traveling in the direction it was when we left it. It would be like starting a new model solar System with different initial conditions.
This sort of suggests that, however you removed the Earth, as long as you did it quickly, things should just carry on, obeying Newton's gravitational law, starting with the conditions we left them with.
That would be the 'Newtonian' answer.
BUT, to do that experiment, for a start, you would have had to put an awful lot of energy into the system. Just clicking your fingers wouldn't be enough and your original question is too 'unreal' to have sensible answer, I fear.
You just can't get rid of anything without 'doing something' involving energy and that energy would have an effect on the surrounding space as well as on the object.
If it were annihilated by a vast piece of antimatter then we are talking MAJOR EVENT in the Cosmos. Serious amounts of energy coming off. Supernova style of things. I have no idea how it would compare but do E = m c squared on the Earth (X2) and I think that could be more than the energy of a Supernova. (Someone help me please - you must know)
Even the energy needed to 'bash it' out of the way with some major collision would be pretty huge - if it had to be removed in a very short time (finger clicking time). This would make the event pretty visible, I reckon.
You could imagine that some serious gravity waves would be produced, even with the relatively tiny mass of the Earth. I don't know what other cosmological event would correspond to this thought experiment but it would not be trivial if your timescale were to be followed. Quite a Bang!
This isn't even half a proper answer, though. . . .
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Hi Neil
Don't worry i understand what you mean,we non intellectual types think alike.
For space to rush in then then matter would not be able to reside in the same place as space at the same time for the space to be left if the earth were to disappear for space to rush in if you get what i mean or whhat neil means i think. [;D] so can i go a bit further and try my best to confuse the issue [;)]
For something like the fabric of space to flow through something does there need to be gaps for it to flow through
Does space the fabric of space permeate through all matter, through the gaps inside and outside and between the atoms and if so or even if not so :) does it permeate through the smallest of things that make up matter like quarks and leptons. If it does permeate through quarks would that mean that quarks are made from smaller things allowing gaps for space to flow through .
I feel all spaced out now.
Me too !!.....and THANK YOU MICHAEL !
Although people often refer to a 'fabric' of space, or space-time, it shouldn't be taken too literally - there's not actually a spacetime medium that only exists where matter doesn't.
Matter needs space to exist within, so the removal of the Earth wouldn't result in space rushing in to fill the vacant 'space' - it would already be there. However, the shape of the space that was occupied by the Earth would change when the Earth was removed.
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Don't forget - most of 'matter' is empty space, in any case. Unless you are talking in terms of Neutron Stars the gaps between the nuclei of atoms in a 'solid' are pretty enormous.
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THANK YOU Sophiecentaur and LeeE for your wise words.
I really appreciate the time you have taken to respond in such a way that even I...understand it !!
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And thank you too, Neil.
We lurve your questions. That was particularly 'Neilish'.