Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Europan Ocean on 04/07/2013 09:52:37
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We have heard the new idea that the universe came from nothing, according to quantum mechanics. I think S Hawking popularized the idea. Does this mean there were no quantum mechanics as well?
How does a scientist define "nothing"?
From my understanding of the dictionary and science, I go from the absence of light and matter, to no dimensions, and no nature, no universe with a nature, or anything at all. No god, or higher power.
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We have heard the new idea that the universe came from nothing, ..
No we didn't. I believe that you heard wrong. If someone makes a claim about where the universe came from then its speculation only. There is the idea that the universe "tunneled" into existance though.
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I am just about to start reading L W Krauss's "a universe from nothing". This sort of book title probably contributes to what E O is hearing. however, until I reach the end of the book I choose to make no assumptions about what Krauss might actually be saying.
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We have heard the new idea that the universe came from nothing, according to quantum mechanics. I think S Hawking popularized the idea. Does this mean there were no quantum mechanics as well?
Nothing comes from nothing. The universe has no time point of its existence in contrast to matter (around 14 billion years).
How does a scientist define "nothing"?
I don't know how scientists define nothing, but one meaning of nothing I can define as lack of space. Lack of space "starts" where the (finite) universe ends.
From my understanding of the dictionary and science, I go from the absence of light and matter, to no dimensions, and no nature, no universe with a nature, or anything at all. No god, or higher power.
When we say lack of space, this is tantamount to a lack of anything.
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I suspect that one of the reasons we run into difficulties with the concept of nothing is that we cannot really visualise nothing.
Many popular science books assure us (and rightly so) that we can't visualise a fourth dimension of space, let alone the ten, or more, dimensions required by string theory, because we have no experience upon which to base such a visualisation. In the same way, I suspect that our life experience prevents us from forming a mental picture of nothing, because we have never experienced it, either first hand, or through someone else’s description of it. Our nearest experience is of “empty” space, so when we try to visualise nothingness, we use empty space, as a convenient substitute. If space has ever been a suitable substitute image for nothingness, it certainly isn't now, because, according to quantum theory it is far from empty. Of course, there may be mystics somewhere who can visualise “nothing”. Perhaps Fred Alan Wolf could find us a yogi who could do this. The possibility mustn't be ruled out, but for the vast majority of us the fourth spatial dimension and “nothing”, together with the moment of creation of the Universe, will probably remain concepts we can acknowledge only intellectually, but never actually visualise.
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How does a scientist define nothing?
Konrad Lorenz nailed it when described scientists. He said "Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing"
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Yes, lack of anything, we are looking for the source, where it all came from, rather than endless links to more and more hypothetical things.
As a boy, I was taught, the big bang came from Hydrogen. Later, a multiple dimension space, 12-14 dimensions. Quantum Mechanics, seems to say something can come from nothing. But why so much?
And where does the nature of Quantum Mechanics come from, or is it self existent?
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I suspect that one of the reasons we run into difficulties with the concept of nothing is that we cannot really visualise nothing.
We can't visualise it because there's literally nothing to visualise. If there's nothing between two points or two planes, they are touching.
It is unfortunate that 'empty' space and nothing are often used as if they are synonymous, but they clearly aren't.
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We can't visualise it because there's literally nothing to visualise. If there's nothing between two points or two planes, they are touching.
Agreed, but can you have two spheres with nothing between them?
It is unfortunate that 'empty' space and nothing are often used as if they are synonymous, but they clearly aren't.
Agreed, again. Any thoughts on infinite nothingness? Is nothing always infinite, or just non-existent?
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We have heard the new idea that the universe came from nothing, according to quantum mechanics. I think S Hawking popularized the idea. Does this mean there were no quantum mechanics as well?
My guess is that you'd have to ask him, i.e. see what he says about it from his writings.
How does a scientist define "nothing"?
We don't. My feeling is that it's one of those words that we believe everyone else as a notion of but when pressed for an exact answer they'd be unae to provide you with one.
From my understanding of the dictionary and science, I go from the absence of light and matter, to no dimensions, and no nature, no universe with a nature, or anything at all. No god, or higher power.
My thinking is that physicists use the term to mean different things, the specific meaning therefore being determined by the context in which its used. If it were up to me I'd start out by defining it as Nothing is the absense of all matter and and time and the space in which matter is otherwise found.
But that's just me. Typically I run definitios up the proverbiall flag pole and see who salutes and then go from there.
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Thanks for these opinions, responses.
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... can you have two spheres with nothing between them?
If they're touching you could say there's nothing between the point of contact on each, but it's an arbitrarily small point.
Any thoughts on infinite nothingness? Is nothing always infinite, or just non-existent?
Just non-existent. Infinite nothingness is, presumably, a poetic evocation of infinite 'empty' space.
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If they're touching you could say there's nothing between the point of contact on each, but it's an arbitrarily small point.
So, in order to have two contiguous spheres you have to have "something" between all but the point of contact. Presumably this would be space, which we cannot define as nothing?
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So, in order to have two contiguous spheres you have to have "something" between all but the point of contact. Presumably this would be space, which we cannot define as nothing?
That's how I see it. Nothing just isn't there...
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With nothing, there is no here or there.
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With nothing, there is no here or there.
The fact that you make that statement indicates that you accept that "nothing" exists, at least as a concept.
We are aware that something exists. If something and nothing both exist, at least one must have location, relative to the other. Relativity says this must also apply the other way round, so nothing must be here and/or there relative to something.
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I use to think at "nothing" as a logical negation of all that exists.
Any thoughts on infinite nothingness? Is nothing always infinite, or just non-existent?
Note that when we say "infinite" nothingness, we already assign a property to nothingness (that of being infinite) hence it is no longer "nothing" but something.
In my opinion Krauss might not have given sufficient thought to the concept of "nothing", or simple parse words.... For example in:
he said something about "real nothing" , which in my opinion is laughable at best.
So his nothing is "real" but that makes it "something" and not "nothing".
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The fact that you make that statement indicates that you accept that "nothing" exists, at least as a concept.
We are aware that something exists. If something and nothing both exist, at least one must have location, relative to the other. Relativity says this must also apply the other way round, so nothing must be here and/or there relative to something.
Concepts don't have to have a physical location, they're abstracts. You can have a physical instance of something (some thing) but not of nothing.
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Concepts don't have to have a physical location, they're abstracts. You can have a physical instance of something (some thing) but not of nothing.
If you have a single, solid something, and nothing else, then nothing exists outside the something, but not inside it. Is this not an example of the physical location of both something and nothing?
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If you have a single, solid something, and nothing else, then nothing exists outside the something, but not inside it. Is this not an example of the physical location of both something and nothing?
If you have a single, solid something, and nothing else, then by definition, that single, solid something is all there is. By saying there is nothing outside it, you are effectively saying it has no outside, it is effectively an entire universe. Nothing has no physical location. OTOH if you really want it to have a physical location then you could equally well say that there is nothing between every atom in that single, solid something; but does that really help?
Unless you want to equate nothing with empty space, which I don't, because it isn't... in my opinion. If people colloquially want to use 'nothing' as shorthand for 'empty space' I don't really object, but if we're going to explicitly distinguish them then lets drop the equivocation. It's not that difficult.
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I'd like to point out that physicists don't make attempts to define things like "nothing." It serves no useful purpose.
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Nothing is really super possibility of everything. Space is nothing yet infinitely dense with energy. All matter such as stars radiates into space/ nothing. thus making space a pure sea of energy . Nothing is really everything.
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Space is nothing yet infinitely dense with energy.
That's quite wrong. Where did you ever get that idea from?
I'll just never understand where some of you folks get these crazy ideas from!
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Nothing may just be something we are unable to perceive with our senses or detect with our instruments.
Here is a thought experiment for everyone...
Your dog can speak English (or whatever your native language is). Dogs can hear sounds Humans cannot. Your dog hears a sound which is beyond the range of Human hearing and asks, "Did you hear that?" You reply, "I heard nothing."
The sound is real to your dog so it is something to him. The sound is not real to you so it is nothing to you. Therefore, you will decide there was no sound when, in fact, there was a sound.
This is true with all the senses.
A long time ago, atoms were nothing (we didn't know they existed because we couldn't detect them) but now they are something (we know they exist because we can detect them).
The nothing which some state the Universe came from may just be something we cannot perceive or detect as yet. Therefore, we currently believe it is, and call it, nothingness.
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A long time ago, atoms were nothing (we didn't know they existed because we couldn't detect them) but now they are something (we know they exist because we can detect them).
The unknown isn't nothing. Atoms existed before we knew of them, they were unknown, not nothing.
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you could equally well say that there is nothing between every atom in that single, solid something; but does that really help?
It would certainly not help unless you defined nothing, which, it seems scientists do not do.
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I'd like to point out that physicists don't make attempts to define things like "nothing." It serves no useful purpose.
An interesting comment, Pete.
Apart, perhaps, from "infinity" what else is "like" nothing?
If defining nothing serves no useful purpose, why is it so commonly used, especially in popular science?
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Nothing is it's own definition. It means you are wasting your time looking for or trying to define nothing. By definition, nothing is exactly that, nothing.
The problem is you are asking the wrong question based on your probably correct assumption that there is something there but at the same time your incorrect assumption that it's called nothing when it should be called "something else unknown". Just calling the unknown and/or undefined "nothing" has confused you and apparently many others too.
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I'd like to point out that physicists don't make attempts to define things like "nothing." It serves no useful purpose.
An interesting comment, Pete.
Apart, perhaps, from "infinity" what else is "like" nothing?
If defining nothing serves no useful purpose, why is it so commonly used, especially in popular science?
Scientists worry about defining terms when those terms, precisely defined, yield something useful in terms of physical models or theories. The problem with the concept of "nothing" as an absolute is that it doesn't help with our theories in any way. We can talk about the absence of things or the absence of certain properties in a precise way, and that can be useful: for example, a region of space without matter or energy is meaningful and useful, but that is hardly "absolute nothingness."
This is different from the concept of infnity. Infinity, unlike "nothing" is a useful concept. We can and do use infinity in our models. We don't use "nothing" in our models. (This is setting aside the question the physical meaning of infinity, which we've discussed at length elsewhere.)
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Nothing is it's own definition. It means you are wasting your time looking for or trying to define nothing. By definition, nothing is exactly that, nothing.
The problem is you are asking the wrong question based on your probably correct assumption that there is something there but at the same time your incorrect assumption that it's called nothing when it should be called "something else unknown". Just calling the unknown and/or undefined "nothing" has confused you and apparently many others too.
Even nothing is something.