[EvaH (OP)]

David asks:

Is space itself nothing more than an energy field?

What do you think?

[alancalverd]

No. Space is the gap between stuff. "Outer space" is all the gaps between relatively solid stuff like stars and planets and our own planet.

I can find no definition of "energy field" outside of alternative "medicine".

[Petrochemicals]

No. Space is the gap between stuff. "Outer space" is all the gaps between relatively solid stuff like stars and planets and our own planet.

Citation needed.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24043-dark-energy-could-be-the-offspring-of-the-higgs-boson/

[evan_au]

Space is not entirely empty, even when you take out all the stuff that is big enough to see...
- In the Solar System, there is the Solar wind, which collides with the interstellar medium far beyond Pluto
- There are photons and electromagnetic fields, including magnetic fields from the Sun and the galaxy
- There are neutrinos
- There are (almost certainly) gravitons
- There is Dark Matter (whatever that is)

[alancalverd]

But no such thing as an "energy field".

[Xeon]

David asks:

Is space itself nothing more than an energy field?

What do you think?

I'll be straight forward and tell you the truth about stupid questions . Fields occupy space and Newton was correct on absolute immovable space . Space is an empty,  infinite volume of no thing that "allows"  volumes of matter to occupy space .  Consider that all visual matter have energy fields that are entangled with a spatial singularity energy field and then you should be able to envision the picture .

[Xeon]

But no such thing as an "energy field".

Really?  Where did you learn physics ?

[Bored chemist]

David asks:

Is space itself nothing more than an energy field?

What do you think?

I'll be straight forward and tell you the truth about stupid questions . Fields occupy space and Newton was correct on absolute immovable space . Space is an empty,  infinite volume of no thing that "allows"  volumes of matter to occupy space .  Consider that all visual matter have energy fields that are entangled with a spatial singularity energy field and then you should be able to envision the picture .

Where I am it's Friday night/ Saturday morning, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Do you still stand by that assertion in the "cold light of a brand new day"?

[alancalverd]

Really?  Where did you learn physics ?

A levels, Cambridge, Warwick, Open University, National Physical Laboratory, Public Heath England, Civil Aviation Authority, and a few other places. Yourself?

It's worth looking up "energy field" in a dictionary. It has a very specific meaning in radiotherapy and  a very vague meaning in alternative medicine, but nothing to do with astrophysics.

[yor_on]

Fields becomes a weird concept when you combine them with quantum mechanics superpositions. In relativity 'time' and 'space' becomes a sort of 'force' by itself, almost like a 'force' in classical physics. It's called SpaceTime and both space and time is presumed to act upon the other forces. But according to the equivalence principle gravity (GR) is a acceleration, a constant uniform acceleration giving us our weight on earth ( one gravity ), and in relativity fields are observer dependent, we use 'proper time' to define them which means the local observers definition of time and space. You don't see those effects on earth normally, they are too small but NIST has proven it with their atomic clocks.

In quantum theory you have superpositions with the variable forcing them into a outcome being time, and I call it a 'variable' although we could as easily call it a local 'proper time frame of reference' . In quantum mechanics you also have an idea of every possible solution becoming real, the so called 'many world scenarios'. So what does it do to a 'field'?

=

You could express it like this maybe. In relativity 'space and time' act together 'versus' the observer, f.ex it means that the faster you go the more your universe shrinks, accelerating give you gravity, change your time, etc. SpaceTime becomes observer dependent, depending on mass, speeds and accelerations.

In quantum physics a field is a field, it should have some 'objective' existence no matter 'relativistic effects' on it as in EM. But is also has superpositions and probabilities, and many worlds.

And the point is that we all define it, as far as I know, as happening inside a universe, those 'fields' I'm discussing, where relativity states that they are just as observer dependent as SpaceTime itself.

Think of the double slit experiment if you want to get even more confused :)
https://www.hendrix.edu/uploadedFiles/Departments_and_Programs/Physics/Faculty/DS5Quantum.pdf

[unstman]

Since matter comprises of around 4% of everything we, presently, know in the Universe, is dark matter and dark energy part of space or is it space itself?