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

[Kharakov]

Never heard Bugs Bunny used as a verb. I rooted for Elmer as a kid.

Oh, come on. That's just FUD.

It was more of a reference to the verbal king's strategy to get someone to argue their side of the line.

Wait, and I'm pretty sure I've accused you of BBing me before, unless this is the second iteration of the same universe, with a bit of time lag and evolution as... people learn?

That would be weird, ehh? An eternally repeating universe with memories of prior repetitions ingrained in spacetime. Ohh crap. I wonder if the memories include the future, and future knowledge, which can be used in the past? How convenient. I'll be smarter and nicer next time. hahaha.. nm. Consider the last statement null.

 

[Malintent]

Never heard Bugs Bunny used as a verb. I rooted for Elmer as a kid.

Oh, come on. That's just FUD.

It was more of a reference to the verbal king's strategy to get someone to argue their side of the line.

Wait, and I'm pretty sure I've accused you of BBing me before, unless this is the second iteration of the same universe, with a bit of time lag and evolution as... people learn?

That would be weird, ehh? An eternally repeating universe with memories of prior repetitions ingrained in spacetime. Ohh crap. I wonder if the memories include the future, and future knowledge, which can be used in the past? How convenient. I'll be smarter and nicer next time. hahaha.. nm. Consider the last statement null.

Duck season!... FIRE!

 

[fromderinside]

It was more of a reference to the verbal king's strategy to get someone to argue their side of the line.

Wait, and I'm pretty sure I've accused you of BBing me before, unless this is the second iteration of the same universe, with a bit of time lag and evolution as... people learn?

That would be weird, ehh? An eternally repeating universe with memories of prior repetitions ingrained in spacetime. Ohh crap. I wonder if the memories include the future, and future knowledge, which can be used in the past? How convenient. I'll be smarter and nicer next time. hahaha.. nm. Consider the last statement null.

Duck season!... FIRE!

Punctuation police here. Duck! Season, FIRE?

Quick Wiley, get me some of those ACME holes.

 

[fast]

Space isn't a thing, and as such, it's continuous and smooth; magnification of nothing begets not discontinuous and granular space. Things in space, however, are discontinuous and granular, as magnification of things shows.

Space both is and isn't expanding. In the sense that objects are moving further apart yes, but in the sense space itself is expanding, no.

 

[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?

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...

I was just learning about the different types of infinity. In math, you CAN divide infinity further.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

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)?

Is anything continuous in nature?

 

[Kharakov]

Is anything continuous in nature?

Is anything truly not part of the continuum?

Even thoughts of apparently discontinuous entities are connected by being part of the continuum.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Is anything continuous in nature?

Is anything truly not part of the continuum?

Even thoughts of apparently discontinuous entities are connected by being part of the continuum.

But what in nature is continuous? There are gaps in everything. Atomic structures, electricity, light.

 

[bilby]

Is anything continuous in nature?

Is anything truly not part of the continuum?

Even thoughts of apparently discontinuous entities are connected by being part of the continuum.

But what in nature is continuous? There are gaps in everything. Atomic structures, electricity, light.

Space is continuous. So is time.

If space was discontinuous, then it would be impossible to differentiate between objects at long distances, when to do so would imply an angular movement at the detector of less than the minimum possible fraction of space. That would imply that the size of the minimum block of space increases with distance from an observer, and that the minimum possible distance of travel would therefore be dependent upon the observer. We do not observe this phenomenon, so space must be continuous.

 

[beero1000]

Is anything continuous in nature?

Is anything truly not part of the continuum?

Even thoughts of apparently discontinuous entities are connected by being part of the continuum.

But what in nature is continuous? There are gaps in everything. Atomic structures, electricity, light.

Not intrinsically. Discrete levels appear due to the boundary conditions of the equations of quantum mechanics, so bound particles have some (but certainly not all) quantities quantized. Free particles, on the other hand, can have continuous energy spectra. The idea that 'quantum mechanics implies everything is discrete' is a misunderstanding.

 

[Kharakov]

But what in nature is continuous? There are gaps in everything. Atomic structures, electricity, light.

You mean like the places of low field strength between atoms, electrons,etc.? According to what I've been taught (technically, according to what I can picture in my mind), the field strengths are present everywhere, with smoothly varying magnitudes. So there are "gaps" of extremely low field strength, but there are still continuous fields of some sort, or at the very least, continuous spacetime.

 

[bilby]

But what in nature is continuous? There are gaps in everything. Atomic structures, electricity, light.

You mean like the places of low field strength between atoms, electrons,etc.? According to what I've been taught (technically, according to what I can picture in my mind), the field strengths are present everywhere, with smoothly varying magnitudes. So there are "gaps" of extremely low field strength, but there are still continuous fields of some sort, or at the very least, continuous spacetime.

Even if you could identify a location where the amplitude of an electron were zero, the fact that you can identify that location as distinct from other locations where the amplitude is nonzero, indicates that the region in question is not a discontinuity, but is a location in its own right.

The 'gap' where the bound electron cannot be found is just as much a part of the space continuum as the areas where the electron might be found.

 

[Kharakov]

Yeah, I was trying to phrase it in a way that conveyed that the gaps were not discontinuities. Fail?

 

[bilby]

Yeah, I was trying to phrase it in a way that conveyed that the gaps were not discontinuities. Fail?

Not at all - I was agreeing with and expanding upon your post.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah, I was trying to phrase it in a way that conveyed that the gaps were not discontinuities. Fail?

Yes, fail. I wasn’t making much of an argument, just exposing some of my ignorance.

 

[Kharakov]

lol... Ok.