Space

[heph]

Recently, I have been wondering about space. Is there an end to space, or what is in space? Is this something that science can answer?

[Divine Insight]

Hi heph,

You actually posted this in the wrong forum. Maybe someone will move it for you. This forum is for Comments, Suggestions, and Questions, about this forum.

In any case, just as a quick answer to your question, yes, science has answers. Whether those answers are the final answer of reality is hard to say. Space can actually be both finite and unbounded. So in a mathematical sense it can be both finite and infinite simultaneously in various different ways.

Einsteins General relativity described the behavior of "space". But it's not just space itself. Space and time are intimately entangled and so Einstein's equations actually described a fabric of "Spacetime" as a single malleable entity.

Explaining that geometry in unambiguous terms would be impossible in a post. Many people who study General Relativity in depth still come away from it having not truly understood it.

But yes, science has answers to these kinds of questions. The degree to which you may find them to be satisfying may ultimately depend upon how well you understand the explanations. And they will necessarily be highly mathematical explanations.

[OnceConvinced]

Douglas Adams answered it:

Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space...

[otseng]

Moderator Action

Moved to General Chat. Please review the Rules and Tips on starting a debate topic.

[ttruscott]

Recently, I have been wondering about space. Is there an end to space, or what is in space? Is this something that science can answer?

No matter how big it is if it is not infinite there is an edge, the edge of created reality...and past the edge is the outer darkness, the place of banishment for the demons.

peace, Ted

[Divine Insight]

No matter how big it is if it is not infinite there is an edge, the edge of created reality...and past the edge is the outer darkness,

Actually this isn't true. There are consistent scientific and mathematical models for a universe that is neither infinite nor has an edge. This may be difficult to imagine intuitively, especially if a person is imagining standard Euclidean geometry as their model. But mathematics actually provides for universes that are neither infinite, nor have an edge.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Recently, I have been wondering about space. Is there an end to space, or what is in space? Is this something that science can answer?

Here is a way of thinking about "space" so as to keep it in perspective. If you were to leave the earth and our sun at the speed of light , and begin a journey to circumnavigate the the entire universe, by the time you returned to your place of origin the sun would have long since died out and the Earth and planets would be gone. You would have no means to determine that your journey had reached any sort of an "end" at all. There is no "end," only ongoing change. Another way of think about it, is to consider being on the surface of a bubble. No matter how far you travel, you can never reach "an end."

[Pazuzu bin Hanbi]

Considering that space is continuously expanding, and that nothing slower than light speed can travel at superluminal speeds, does that not effectively make the universe infinite — since we can never reach its ‘edge’?

[McCulloch]

Considering that space is continuously expanding, and that nothing slower than light speed can travel at superluminal speeds, does that not effectively make the universe infinite — since we can never reach its ‘edge’?

Yes, for all practical purposes, it has no edge.

But, there are good reasons to believe that in reality there is no edge either. Remember the games asteroid and pacman ? The entities in those games lived in a universe without an edge. Our universe may be similar, except that it has three not two spacial dimensions and it is constantly expanding.

[bluethread]

Considering that space is continuously expanding, and that nothing slower than light speed can travel at superluminal speeds, does that not effectively make the universe infinite — since we can never reach its ‘edge’?

Yes, for all practical purposes, it has no edge.

But, there are good reasons to believe that in reality there is no edge either. Remember the games asteroid and pacman ? The entities in those games lived in a universe without an edge. Our universe may be similar, except that it has three not two spacial dimensions and it is constantly expanding.

Just Three?

The empirical theories regarding space are not that different from theistic theories, it is just that pesky deity thing that gets in the way. It is my understanding that the majority of the universe is devoid of particles. Even the majority of the keyboard you are typing on is devoid of particles. There are various forces that cause the particles that exist to attract and repel each other at various velocities in relation to one another. However, most of what we perceive is really "empty" space. It is just that "empty" space does not reflect light and those forces cause resistance to assimilation, resulting in sensations of pressure. Now, whether all is just a relatively small amount of matter and motion in a vast sea of nothing or there is a designer and/or controller of all that matter and motion is where most of the disagreement comes from.