Is Spacetime Actually a Superfluid?

[wolram]

http://phys.org/news/2014-04-liquid-spacetime-slippery-superfluid.html

What if spacetime were a kind of fluid? This is the question tackled by theoretical physicists working on quantum gravity by creating models attempting to reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. Some of these models predict that spacetime at the Planck scale (10-33cm) is no longer continuous – as held by classical physics – but discrete in nature. Just like the solids or fluids we come into contact with every day, which can be seen as made up of atoms and molecules when observed at sufficient resolution. A structure of this kind generally implies, at very high energies, violations of Einstein's special relativity (a integral part of general relativity).

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-liquid-spacetime-slippery-superfluid.html#jCp

If space time is emergent what did it emerge from? And would it need to emerge or consist of two components
like water has hydrogen and oxygen.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

It seems that the main point of this article to say that if it is a kind of fluid (which is a model used by some quantum gravity people) then it must be a superfluid because it doesn't cause any noticeable dispersion, e.g. of photons from distant stars and galaxies.

I presume that the concept of "superfluid" at this level has nothing to do with with chemical fluids; it is more that one can use some of the mathematics from dealing with fluids for dealing with quantum models of spacetime.

 

[Chronos]

Agreed. Space is frequently modeled as a fluid to apply fluid dynamics to cosmological questions. It is an approach that is useful and can yield interesting results. If spacetime is emergent, the same question could be applied to the emergence of energy in the early universe.This discussion might be of interest http://www.astronomycafe.net/gravity/gravity.html.