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  4. What is space?
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What is space?

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Offline Robro

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What is space?
« Reply #20 on: 23/08/2011 18:45:10 »
I tend to think that the very volume of "space" is made of all the electromagnetic phenomena that is observed in nature. To back up my thoughts on this, consider that nothing has EVER been observed in this Universe to be comprised of anything other than electromagnetic energy. So, in light of this, perhaps the question is as void as the answer here, and maybe "space" is an illusion of volume brought on by electromagnetism, the only thing ever observed so far in nature.
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Offline yor_on

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What is space?
« Reply #21 on: 24/08/2011 02:52:45 »
So atoms are electromagnetic now?
And gravity too :)
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Offline imatfaal

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What is space?
« Reply #22 on: 24/08/2011 11:01:04 »
Quote from: yor_on on 24/08/2011 02:52:45
So atoms are electromagnetic now?
And gravity too :)

Not sure how many observations you will be able to list that aren't mediated at one point through the electromagnetic force/photons
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Offline MikeS

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What is space?
« Reply #23 on: 24/08/2011 16:53:21 »
quote
What is space?

Nothing.
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Offline yor_on

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What is space?
« Reply #24 on: 24/08/2011 20:27:25 »

Gravity.
HUP. I know, one can argue about that one, but to me it is HUP that lays the ground for QM. And sort of find some own remarkable definition of 'time' from assuming a possible superposition of all states before the measurement, where statistics and matrices will define the probability of a outcome. You could see is as we have time, like a surface moving forward, where that surface has passed you will have classical outcomes, but inside that surface at 90 degrees to existence you don't have a 'time' at all, at least not a 'arrow'. Instead you have it all, coexisting on a very small plane, and as we can't define a arrow to it, without classical motion.

What we see after that is 'forces' under a arrow with a direction. The more confusing way is to discuss it as 'seething with possibilities' and 'fluctuation' which both imply a 'motion' to it.

Amongst others.
But radiation is a seriously weird subject.

So yes, assuming that a photons is a 'wave' in a electromagnetic field, it is something defined by electromagnetism. But photons are not 'gravity', and they are not diverged by a electrical or magnetic field.
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Offline yor_on

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What is space?
« Reply #25 on: 24/08/2011 20:41:16 »
And to be perfectly correct, what seems to be the primeval 'carriers' are the, so called, 'virtual particles', those that we can't measure inside our arrow. I see it as a matter of personal taste how you define them, inside Planck time or outside. Defining them inside should give them a 'motion', as they then will be inside our definitions sensible. Thinking as I though, they are 'outside' Planck Time, which then makes them outside of our definitions of 'motion' too.
==

And they are, as I see it, creatures of HUP.
« Last Edit: 24/08/2011 20:43:08 by yor_on »
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Offline lightarrow

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What is space?
« Reply #26 on: 24/08/2011 23:37:26 »
Quote from: yor_on on 23/08/2011 02:17:20
I agree in one thing Lightarrow. Smolin is one of the most interesting thinkers I know of. But it still has to be proven.

But Smolin does not ignore relativity, neither in Loop quantum gravity, nor here. And does not assume that relativity is wrong either, even thought the author from Nature seems to angle it that way?
The idea is that General Relativity is not wrong, but it's just a sort of approximation of a reality which is also quantistic, at smaller levels.

In this context, the 4-dimensional spacetime is just one face of the coin, the other being the 4-dimensional momentum space; both would be non-absolute, while, putting them together in a 8-dimensional "something", it would become absolute (invariant). So the theory would like to be even a... generalization of General Relativity  [:)]

Have you ever thought to the fact that the Heisenberg principle, in the form Δx*Δpx ≥ h, means that there exist a minimum "area" = h, in a coordinate system where one axis is x and the other px?
That is space phase.

Using all the three spatial coordinates and time, you have an eight-dimensional phase space.
The Heisenberg principle is nothing than the fact "phase space" has an element of "volume" equal to
(Δx*Δpx)*(Δy*Δpy)*(Δz*Δpz)*(ΔE*Δt) = h4

Things become to be more clear in phase space, isnt'it?
« Last Edit: 24/08/2011 23:40:28 by lightarrow »
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Offline Robro

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What is space?
« Reply #27 on: 25/08/2011 05:33:01 »
Not sure about any "virtual particles". Consider that the photon, whatever type it may be, always migrates toward increasing field strength. Massive objects "bend" light waves of photons, and what do massive objects pour out into space, "Electromagnetic Fields"! I do not think that gravity is a mysterious force propagated by any special unobserved phantom particles such as gravitons. I do think however that photons reach their maximum amplitude of, and  between, their electric and magnetic oscillations in the direction that they travel, this is the point of the photon most forward in association to the electric and magnetic fields that emanate from it. As the photon encounters electromagnetic fields through it's journeys, it reaches maximum saturation for it's specific wavelength in an offset toward increasing field strength, causing it to "curve" toward that increase in field strength.

Consider that a photon produces two distinct things, an electric field and a magnetic field. Something happens at the tip of the photon between these two entities. Perhaps it is a vortex of sorts, where these two fields fold around each other, like the spike of energy in a wave. And the rate at which this takes place governs the total amount of energy the photon exhibits.

It is difficult for me to visualize gravity as a "pulling" function. I tend to think of gravity as a "propagating" phenomenon.
« Last Edit: 25/08/2011 05:41:20 by Robro »
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Offline yor_on

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What is space?
« Reply #28 on: 29/08/2011 04:50:06 »
Hm, you're putting together HUP and phase space :)
Wish I knew Lightarrow? (Seem to write that a lot those days, don't I.)

But I don't know, if we assume that there are photons, and that they are propagating, then they must have a motion. What exactly are you imagining as a momentum space? To me it must be those particles propagation. They are what will consist of a measurable momentum, at any point defined, under their propagation.

And to then split the 'particle' from its momentum? In a way I can think of it as only being momentum, everything being translated into that, but that's no different to me than thinking of it as we see it 'normally'. It's just a shifting of gears. I could as easily describe it all in form of changing densities with space then becoming some sort of limit for our observation.

Another one that I really like, as it fits my ideas better, is to see it all as a numberspace. In that space nothing 'moves', but the numbers change their value. And from that you can get a 'motion' too as I think of it. But the honest truth is that I don't know, but wished that I did :)

But maybe I'm missing the point here. You will have to explain to me how a momentum space becomes something new in physics?
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