Discontinuous and/or granular space vs. continuous, smooth space

[Kharakov]

There is no evidence for discontinuous and/or granular space, yet we still have a few flat spacers out there.

There is experimental evidence, from GRB photon arrival timing, that if space is discontinuous or granular, it is so at lengths a minimum of 10^-11 times smaller than the Planck length. We can't test this in a lab- we have to observe distant GRBs and see if photons arrive at different times due to irregularities in space.


How could space be discontinuous and/or granular, and allow natural (not highly intelligent, planned out) interactions over large volumes?



Does space have any properties that would allow it to evolve into entities over time, or is it too chaotic (forget the QM bullshit)?

 

[fast]

How about the universe is a hologram bullshit

 

[Malintent]

It's smooth.

That is the reasonable default position from which no other phenomena ever observed departs. Nothing in nature is "pixelated" outside of the limitations of measuring devices.

 

[Kharakov]

How about the universe is a hologram bullshit

Or simulation. Guess what, there is a simulation in your brain, and that's what you use to interpret the universe, which is why it looks like a fucking simulation you (not you fast) simultards!@!$!@$!@$

 

[untermensche]

It's smooth.

That is the reasonable default position from which no other phenomena ever observed departs. Nothing in nature is "pixelated" outside of the limitations of measuring devices.

Electrons can only exist at certain energy levels in an atom or molecule.

Imagine if space is continuous and could somehow be divided infinitely.

How big would an infinitely small slice of space be?

 

[Kharakov]

It's smooth.

I've seen EB argue for it being nodal- lots of connected nodes, but that is way more complicated than smooth space. Stuff would have to transmit to neighboring nodes, selecting some specific node, instead of simply only imparting momentum/reflecting in a single threespace.

 

[Malintent]

It's smooth.

That is the reasonable default position from which no other phenomena ever observed departs. Nothing in nature is "pixelated" outside of the limitations of measuring devices.

Electrons can only exist at certain energy levels in an atom or molecule.

Imagine if space is continuous and could somehow be divided infinitely.

How big would an infinitely small slice of space be?

Not following you.... Between the parking spaces numbered 101 and 102 there are no parking spaces. Therefore the universe does not exist between them? how does one leave one parking spot and travel to another, then?

How big would an "infinitely small" slice of space be? It would be infinitesimal, of course.

It may not be very interesting, or even sensible, to divide space or time beyond useful limits. How long will it be until your next birthday... to the nanosecond? what use is that? just because it is not useful does not mean it does not exist.

 

[Malintent]

It's smooth.

I've seen EB argue for it being nodal- lots of connected nodes, but that is way more complicated than smooth space. Stuff would have to transmit to neighboring nodes, selecting some specific node, instead of simply only imparting momentum/reflecting in a single threespace.

I'd entertain arguments for what MODELS of the universe are more useful than others... but I see no reason to argue that the ACTUAL universe has the added complexity that you are describing (and not necessarily proposing, I understand). Occam's Razor and all..

 

[fast]

I have two views of space.

Space is something in the sense it's something we can talk about, but it's not in fact some thing but rather the absence of some thing. There can be some thing that could occupy space, but space itself is itself just a place for things to occupy, albeit for extremely short time frames as things whiz through it.

As such, it's not movable and thus cannot expand, as is often claimed. Objects move through space in a very Newtonian sense. That's not to say there are not relativistic perspectives such as the space between me and the steering column that remains constant as I drive, but that doesn't negate that such space as depicted isn't traveling through the real Newtonian space.

The second view suggests the possibility of space expanding. For example, imagine two ants walking in line at the same speed along a rubber band. The distance between the ants shouldn't change unless the rubber band is stretched. If space can act like that, then an alteration in speed between two objects that would otherwise be moving at the same speed would be attributable to space and not the objects.

There is a sneaking suspicion that there's a maximum divisibility limit possibly rendering the analogy of space being pixelated fundamentally accurate and thus discrete; however (and due to the enormity of otherwise larger particles and objects in existence traveling) we are left to believe space is continuous until demonstrated otherwise.

 

[steve_bank]

Before talking about continuity, what is space and how do you experimentally divide it?

How would you measure quantitatively? Quantitatively space is a measurement in meters.Any physical measurement of any kind will be limited at the quantum level.

As Kelvin put it, if you can't put a number to it it is not science.

 

[Kharakov]

The second view suggests the possibility of space expanding. For example, imagine two ants walking in line at the same speed along a rubber band. The distance between the ants shouldn't change unless the rubber band is stretched. If space can act like that, then an alteration in speed between two objects that would otherwise be moving at the same speed would be attributable to space and not the objects.

Your second view seems to be in line with General Relativity. Things can't move faster than the speed of light, yet distant objects are receding faster than the speed of light because space is expanding everywhere. It's sort of like a rising loaf of bread, with galaxies being seeds in the loaf.

There is a sneaking suspicion that there's a maximum divisibility limit possibly rendering the analogy of space being pixelated fundamentally accurate and thus discrete; however (and due to the enormity of otherwise larger particles and objects in existence traveling) we are left to believe space is continuous until demonstrated otherwise.

Think about it this way- either space is continuous and holds all information within it, or every quantum field holds all the information about relative distances within it in some continuous form.

And QM makes things look whatchacallity- like there is non-local information, but this could be due to spacetime being a single entity, or QM things being nodal (like EB said, and I've read in some graph-theory math/sci-fi), or each Q entity in the Q continuum contains all the information of the whole. You'd have to ask Qbert Einstein if things are really voxelated at that level. Beep.


Anyway. We can extrapolate from our experience of the universe that everything is smoothly connected somehow- otherwise light from distant stars would not reach us. Disparate particles could not "seek" one another via electric charge, chemical reactions could not occur. Planets could not coalesce. Stars could not form from disparate particles.

Or we could take the silly approach and assume "Well, we don't know everything, so it could just all be an illusion". Which is bullshit. So...

 

[untermensche]

It's smooth.

That is the reasonable default position from which no other phenomena ever observed departs. Nothing in nature is "pixelated" outside of the limitations of measuring devices.

Electrons can only exist at certain energy levels in an atom or molecule.

Imagine if space is continuous and could somehow be divided infinitely.

How big would an infinitely small slice of space be?

Not following you.... Between the parking spaces numbered 101 and 102 there are no parking spaces. Therefore the universe does not exist between them? how does one leave one parking spot and travel to another, then?

I do not see how this is in any way helpful.

Electrons do not move smoothly from one parking spot to another. They exist at discrete energy levels and not in between.

How big would an "infinitely small" slice of space be? It would be infinitesimal, of course.

That's an imaginary concept. Not something real or something that could ever be real.

If space cannot rationally be divided infinitely to think it is smooth is absurd.

 

[bilby]

Not following you.... Between the parking spaces numbered 101 and 102 there are no parking spaces. Therefore the universe does not exist between them? how does one leave one parking spot and travel to another, then?

I do not see how this is in any way helpful.

Electrons do not move smoothly from one parking spot to another. They exist at discrete energy levels and not in between.

How big would an "infinitely small" slice of space be? It would be infinitesimal, of course.

That's an imaginary concept. Not something real or something that could ever be real.

If space cannot rationally be divided infinitely to think it is smooth is absurd.

'untermensche doesn't understand it' is not the same thing as 'absurd'.

Energy levels are not locations. Electrons are located somewhere in the universe, with a probability amplitude distribution that makes finding them in a particular place more likely for certain parts of the universe, mostly concentrated in the area around the molecule to which they 'belong'. Whether or not they travel from place to place in the macroscopic sense of that phrase is unknown; but they probably don't - certainly, making the assumption that they do leads to predictions that are falsified by experiment.

The theories of space that stand up well under exposure to experiment - Quantum Field Theory and Relativity - both work under the assumption that spacetime is continuous. If you don't like that, then you can either a) Be wrong; b) Detail an equally accurate theory (or theories) that don't require that assumption; or c) Accept that reality need not conform with your desires.

Those really are your only options. I understand that you have chosen option a; I cannot say that I admire that choice, but it's yours to make. Expect laughter.

 

[Juma]

It's smooth.

That is the reasonable default position from which no other phenomena ever observed departs. Nothing in nature is "pixelated" outside of the limitations of measuring devices.

Electrons can only exist at certain energy levels in an atom or molecule.

Imagine if space is continuous and could somehow be divided infinitely.

How big would an infinitely small slice of space be?

what is mean is: for any size you suggest, there is a smaller size. That what it means. Not that you could slice an infinitely thin slice...

 

[untermensche]

I do not see how this is in any way helpful.

Electrons do not move smoothly from one parking spot to another. They exist at discrete energy levels and not in between.

That's an imaginary concept. Not something real or something that could ever be real.

If space cannot rationally be divided infinitely to think it is smooth is absurd.

'untermensche doesn't understand it' is not the same thing as 'absurd'.

True but irrelevant.

Energy levels are not locations.

They exist in relation to the nucleus.

That is a location.

And electrons do not move in the space between energy levels. They can only exist within them.

 

[untermensche]

It's smooth.

That is the reasonable default position from which no other phenomena ever observed departs. Nothing in nature is "pixelated" outside of the limitations of measuring devices.

Electrons can only exist at certain energy levels in an atom or molecule.

Imagine if space is continuous and could somehow be divided infinitely.

How big would an infinitely small slice of space be?

what is mean is: for any size you suggest, there is a smaller size. That what it means. Not that you could slice an infinitely thin slice...

Only in the imagination is there always another slice to be made.

How do you slice space?

 

[bilby]

True but irrelevant.

Energy levels are not locations.

They exist in relation to the nucleus.

That is a location.

And electrons do not move in the space between energy levels. They can only exist within them.

No. Energy levels are not locations. They don't have "space between them". Atoms don't look like microscopic solar systems with electrons in neat orbits around them. That's a popular but seriously out of date model, and has little relationship with reality.

 

[ryan]

It's smooth.

That is the reasonable default position from which no other phenomena ever observed departs. Nothing in nature is "pixelated" outside of the limitations of measuring devices.

There are places that the electron can't be. Space/fields may still be smooth and discontinuous. But it is at least granular (according to probability densities for electron orbitals) for electrons and possibly smooth.

 

[ryan]

Before talking about continuity, what is space and how do you experimentally divide it?

How would you measure quantitatively? Quantitatively space is a measurement in meters.Any physical measurement of any kind will be limited at the quantum level.

As Kelvin put it, if you can't put a number to it it is not science.

Well well well, look who decided to come to TF

Welcome back Steve!

 

[ryan]

Does space have any properties that would allow it to evolve into entities over time, or is it too chaotic (forget the QM bullshit)?

What do you mean chaotic, How is space chaotic, gravity waves? How could space turn into an entity without QM?