Is Spacetime Everywhere and Does it Stack Infinitely?

  • Context: High School 
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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the nature of spacetime, specifically questioning whether it exists everywhere and if it can be conceptualized as stacking infinitely. Participants explore the visualization of spacetime and its representation in various dimensions.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Conceptual clarification, Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses curiosity about the nature of spacetime and questions if it is everywhere and if it stacks infinitely, indicating a desire for a deeper understanding of the concept.
  • Another participant acknowledges that spacetime is indeed everywhere but notes the difficulty in representing a four-dimensional spacetime on a two-dimensional screen.
  • A third participant critiques the common rubber sheet analogy used to visualize spacetime, pointing out its limitations in accurately depicting the three spatial dimensions plus time.
  • A later reply indicates that the previous explanations were helpful for understanding the topic better.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the challenges of visualizing spacetime, but there is no consensus on the implications of spacetime being everywhere or the concept of it stacking infinitely.

Contextual Notes

The discussion highlights limitations in visual representations of spacetime and the complexities involved in understanding its dimensionality. There are unresolved aspects regarding the implications of spacetime's omnipresence and its potential layering.

jdfire33
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So I have just recently started thinking about the universe and things like that, and I had a question about spacetime. I was curious as to how exactly spacetime works in the universe. Pictures usually show only one plane of spacetime, such as this picture. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Spacetime_curvature.png.
But isn't spacetime everywhere? So does it stack upon itself infinitely, creating a bunch of layers over and over? Sorry if this doesn't make sense, or if this isn't right the place for it.
 
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jdfire33 said:
But isn't spacetime everywhere? So does it stack upon itself infinitely, creating a bunch of layers over and over?
Yes, but it is exceptionally hard to draw a curved 4D spacetime on a flat 2D monitor.
 
The rubber sheet is a visualization tool, but it shouldn't be taken too seriously. One of its limitations is that it can only show two space dimensions, whereas really there are three of space and one of time (3+1).
 
All right thank you. that helps me understand it more.
 

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