Why is There Space in the Universe?

[mgervasoni]

Ok this may seem almost silly and childish but...

Why isn't everything just clumped together? Why is there space between things? Why isn't the universe just one big planet of matter going from more to less dense if gravity makes things attract each other? Why are there planets and space? Why is there space between things? Why would anything ever break apart? Fundamentally, wouldn't we think that "mass" attracts more mass.. or I like to think outside the box, and say that gravity attracts more gravity.. so wouldn't things would just start sticking together, or at least be on that path?

 

[d0wnl0w]

the big bang was a really really BIG bang

 

[mgervasoni]

ok the big bang or the big expansion.. What was that force? What was the force behind the big bang?

 

[d0wnl0w]

As far as sticking together goes I think you mean particles, atoms, planets and galaxies right?

 

[mgervasoni]

Yes all matter.. matter attracts other matter right? Isn't that what gravity is?

 

[d0wnl0w]

Well I think it was god but idk its called a singularity cause the laws of physics break down and no one can really say what caused it.

 

[d0wnl0w]

Ok i am no expert but I will explain the best i can. Matter attracts matter (which is gravity) Gravity is the fabric of our universe creating space and time. After the big bang energy began to convert into matter and matter started forming sub particles and particles and whatnot. Atoms are held together by forces stronger than gravity (strong force, electromagnitism, weak force) that's why everything doesn't just merge into one dense ball-o-matter. There is space because matter is being repelled from each other from not only the big bang but also from space continously being "created" between galaxies by something called dark matter. Also inertia prevents objects from simply being pulled directly towards one another causing orbits. I hope this helped

 

[mgervasoni]

Could it be that there is a ying to gravity's yang? That for all the pull of gravity there's an equal push somewhere in the universe as witnessed by the ever expanding universe? We think of gravity classically as a one way street with no antigravity (even our word anti-gravity is just "lack" of gravity). But perhaps if we could "step back" and look at the universe, for all the pulling of things together there is an equal push. Like a tug of war or a scale? I'm no rocket scientist or have a Master's in physics, but could it be that we got the idea of gravity wrong?

God? As in a huge person that just blasted things apart with his mighty war axe? God is even harder to comprehend than science, and there are laws in the universe that should help us truly figure out everything. I'm just saying maybe someone needs to rethink the law of gravity. Again, I'm just trying to think outside of the box and I don't want to offend.. and it's not like I'm explaining things by quantum mechanics, uncertainty, gluons, and gravitons, and a singularity that decided to explode one day, I find that even more disturbing.

 

[mgervasoni]

Ok i am no expert but I will explain the best i can. Matter attracts matter (which is gravity) Gravity is the fabric of our universe creating space and time. After the big bang energy began to convert into matter and matter started forming sub particles and particles and whatnot. Atoms are held together by forces stronger than gravity (strong force, electromagnitism, weak force) that's why everything doesn't just merge into one dense ball-o-matter. There is space because matter is being repelled from each other from not only the big bang but also from space continously being "created" between galaxies by something called dark matter. Also inertia prevents objects from simply being pulled directly towards one another causing orbits. I hope this helped

That does help.. especially the idea of it all starting as energy.. I'm going to think some more. Thanks.

 

[d0wnl0w]

I completely agree with you, maybe the key lies at understanding singularities. Maybe just as many galaxies are made up of anti-matter as matter. I don't really believe in dark matter or dark energy but then again what the hell do I know. The one thing you can truly count on knowing is that you know nothing.

 

[Drakkith]

After the beginning of the universe it was much much denser than it is today. So you might think that it should all just clump together in one big ball. And in a way it did, that's what star, galaxies, planets and such are. But the problem is that to clump together it has to move closer together, thus leaving behind a void. Due to tiny differences in density in the beginning of the universe, some parts were slightly more dense than other parts. These parts were the ones that "collapsed", while the parts that were less dense on average were the areas that became voids.

 

[mgervasoni]

Ok Drakkith, that makes some sense. You're giving me a visual now.. I'm imaging the beginning of the universe like a table with sand scattered evenly (all the matter). The grains of sand start to join with other grains... leaving behind "space". But still... ultimately all the sand would want to make one big ball as it went from a grain, to 2 grains, to 4, to 8. The "planets", these masses would want to slam into other planets.. but ut oh.. this thing called an orbit started to exist.. having things be trapped in between the gravitational pull and what? the motion or something?. .. So the motion when the thing 1 is being pulled into a bigger thing 2 causes thing 1 to get stuck in an orbit.. or it wouldn't survive and it would become part of big thing 2. Ah, I think it's starting to make sense to me.

 

[mgervasoni]

But everything had to be moving, or expaning... which is the constant state of the universe after all.

 

[Drakkith]

Could it be that there is a ying to gravity's yang? That for all the pull of gravity there's an equal push somewhere in the universe as witnessed by the ever expanding universe? We think of gravity classically as a one way street with no antigravity (even our word anti-gravity is just "lack" of gravity). But perhaps if we could "step back" and look at the universe, for all the pulling of things together there is an equal push. Like a tug of war or a scale? I'm no rocket scientist or have a Master's in physics, but could it be that we got the idea of gravity wrong?

The closest thing to what you are referring to is Dark Energy or the cosmological constant. And while our understanding of gravity might be missing something, it is far from wrong. The current model of gravity allows us to make extremely precise predictions and it has been observed to match observations on a universal scale.

Again, I'm just trying to think outside of the box and I don't want to offend.. and it's not like I'm explaining things by quantum mechanics, uncertainty, gluons, and gravitons, and a singularity that decided to explode one day, I find that even more disturbing.

That's the problem. To accurately describe something such as gravity you would need to come up with a theory that matches observations just as those theories do. And the big bang was not a singularity that "exploded". It is simply the universe expanding from a dense state to a less dense state.

I completely agree with you, maybe the key lies at understanding singularities. Maybe just as many galaxies are made up of anti-matter as matter. I don't really believe in dark matter or dark energy but then again what the hell do I know. The one thing you can truly count on knowing is that you know nothing.

Whether you believe in dark matter and dark energy is irrelevant, but understandeable. It can be difficult. The fact is that the models that best fit the observations involve dark matter and dark energy. There ARE alternatives, however these are even more problematic.

 

[Drakkith]

but ut oh.. this thing called an orbit started to exist.. having things be trapped in between the gravitational pull and what? the motion or something?. .. So the motion when the thing 1 is being pulled into a bigger thing 2 causes thing 1 to get stuck in an orbit.. or it wouldn't survive and it would become part of big thing 2. Ah, I think it's starting to make sense to me.

I don't know what you want to hear. It is simply a consequence of the laws of nature that it works that way.

But everything had to be moving, or expaning... which is the constant state of the universe after all.

The universe was, and is, expanding.

 

[mgervasoni]

Thanks Drakkith. I'm way too uneducated to have a debate, I'm clearly expressing things based more on "feelings" and my own observations than knowledge. Yet I am doing a lot of research and learning a lot about physics and electricity, but it's only been a month. Perhaps in a year or two's time I can have an educated discussion with you based on prized physicist observations and calculations, which at my level now I can barely understand the F= (G*m1*m2)/r2 formula, let alone how they calculate planetary landings in astrophysics. I'm still figuring out how they can calculate the mass of a planet, and what mass even is =p. But again thanks for the patient answer and teaching me a few things.

 

[mgervasoni]

I don't know what you want to hear. It is simply a consequence of the laws of nature that it works that way.



The universe was, and is, expanding.

Exactly. I wasn't being sarcastic. Just figuring things out for myself. It makes sense to me now.

 

[PatrickPowers]

Ok this may seem almost silly and childish but...

Why isn't everything just clumped together? Why is there space between things? Why isn't the universe just one big planet of matter going from more to less dense if gravity makes things attract each other? Why are there planets and space? Why is there space between things? Why would anything ever break apart? Fundamentally, wouldn't we think that "mass" attracts more mass.. or I like to think outside the box, and say that gravity attracts more gravity.. so wouldn't things would just start sticking together, or at least be on that path?

I don't know, and as far as I know no one else does either. Why did the Universe expand at all? Why didn't it happily remain infinitely dense? No one knows why or how it expands.

 

[mgervasoni]

I don't know, and as far as I know no one else does either. Why did the Universe expand at all? Why didn't it happily remain infinitely dense? No one knows why or how it expands.

I'm going to find out.. I'll let you know tomorrow. (JOKE!)

 

[marcus]

...Why is there space between things? ...

...I'm still figuring out... what mass even is. :tongue2:

These seem to be basic questions that people ought to be asking. And I think a few people currently are.
I hope and expect there will be some progress over the next couple of decades. Maybe not complete answers (almost certainly not complete answers!) but some advances.

One way to describe the puzzle is that it is about geometry.
Why are the distances and angles we see the way they are?
Why do the angles of a triangle add up to approximately 180 degrees and how does the presence of matter change this slightly?

Matter seems to affect geometry. Why does this happen---what is the underlying mechanism? Have to go, back later.

 

[marcus]

You were wondering how to think of mass. One way to think of it is a measure of how "in tight" some matter is with geometry. How tightly coupled it is to geometry.
Like someone who is "in tight" with City Hall.

Matter with a lot of mass can bend geometry, so if it moves around the geometry feels that and adapts to it.

And matter with a lot of mass is very stubborn about following the "party line" laid out by geometry. It wants to move along the geodesics. If it gets started moving along a geodesic it will want to continue and it's difficult to make it veer off. (I mean a 4D geodesic.) What I am talking about is called INERTIA but you can think of it as a strength of coupling. Like someone who is in cahoots with the mayor. they always adjust to each other and conspire to act in each other's interests. Ooops, have to go again. Back later.

 

[mgervasoni]

One thing I heard last night at a lecture about degrees. The greeks, whom we tend to respect and use as our basis, used 360 degrees in a circle because they had a calendar of 360 days. Maybe the degrees don't matter as much as, why do the 3 angles in a triangle add up to a half circle? And a square and rectangle's angles equal the same as a circle? When you think about it, why does a circle even have degrees when it doesn't have angles and should be infinite?

 

[mgervasoni]

I don't know, and as far as I know no one else does either. Why did the Universe expand at all? Why didn't it happily remain infinitely dense? No one knows why or how it expands.

All I know is that motion is the natural state of matter, and that has something or everything to do with it.

 

[silentbob14]

Well, nobody knows for sure that space is empty. It might be as well maybe of some kind of "stuff". So in a sense everything might really be just a bunch of stuff with no empty space in between. But I guess it's more of a philosophical debate ;]

 

[Drakkith]

One thing I heard last night at a lecture about degrees. The greeks, whom we tend to respect and use as our basis, used 360 degrees in a circle because they had a calendar of 360 days. Maybe the degrees don't matter as much as, why do the 3 angles in a triangle add up to a half circle? And a square and rectangle's angles equal the same as a circle? When you think about it, why does a circle even have degrees when it doesn't have angles and should be infinite?

There is no "reason" that these shapes have their corrosponding angles adding up to a certain amont. An octogon adds up to 1080 degrees. So what?

A circle has no internal angles, as it has no straight sides. Shapes with straight sides have arcs between the adjacent sides that are the same length as part of a circle. We happen to measure that amount in degrees since it is independent of units of length, so no matter how big or small a shape might be it's angles are always the same when measured in degrees.

All I know is that motion is the natural state of matter, and that has something or everything to do with it.

Or perhaps nothing.

Well, nobody knows for sure that space is empty. It might be as well maybe of some kind of "stuff". So in a sense everything might really be just a bunch of stuff with no empty space in between. But I guess it's more of a philosophical debate ;]

I'd say most of that is beyond the realm of current science. We'll have to wait and see what the future holds.