What is the fabric of the universe?

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The discussion centers on the concept of the "fabric of the universe," with participants debating whether it is defined by space, time, or a combination of both, referred to as space-time. Key insights include the notion that gravity warps space-time, and that both geometry and curvature may serve as fundamental aspects of reality. Renate Loll's work on quantum gravity is highlighted as a significant contribution to understanding these concepts. Participants also explore the philosophical implications of these ideas, suggesting that traditional perceptions of space and time may be illusions emerging from a more chaotic microscopic reality.

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  • Understanding of general relativity and its implications on gravity and space-time.
  • Familiarity with quantum mechanics and concepts like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
  • Knowledge of the work of physicists such as Renate Loll and John Archibald Wheeler.
  • Basic grasp of cosmology and the ongoing debates regarding the nature of the universe.
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  • Research "Renate Loll quantum gravity simulations" for insights into current research in the field.
  • Study "general relativity and its effects on space-time" to deepen understanding of gravity's role.
  • Explore "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle" to grasp its implications on the nature of reality.
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petm1
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I just wanted to know what people think of the question "What is the fabric of the universe?" I only see two choices either time or space. I know that gravity is something that warps space, which means it must warp the fabric of space, or our second choice time, and I would think that any theory of gravity must at the very least contain a quantum theory of time, because imho gravity is a function of time not space. What do you think?
 
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petm1 said:
I just wanted to know what people think of the question "What is the fabric of the universe?" I only see two choices either time or space.
Why not both?
petm1 said:
I know that gravity is something that warps space, ...
... and time!

See links in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1557122&postcount=4"
 
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The fabric of the universe is indeed BOTH space and time.

We call it space-time.

And then gravity warps space-time.
 
I started this thread thinking that the fabric was either time, space, or space-time. Maybe I should have started it as a poll and listed "other" as a choice, because after thinking of my own question I would have to change my answer to light as being the fabric, with the photon as the thread and matter the ball of yarn. That would make space the loom, time the the room, and you can believe in any weaver that you want. Sorry if this seems to simple but it made me smile when I thought of it.
 
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The best discussion of this issue----where we are at present on it-----that I know of is in the survey paper by Renate Loll called
Quantum Gravity on your Desktop


time and space are largescale perceptions that emerge from some more fundamental processes at microscopic level. Because of Heisenberg Uncertainty, the smaller scale you look the more chaotic spacetime geometry is likely to be. It may not even have a well defined dimensionality down near or below Planck scale. Concepts like length area volume angle may be infected with indeterminacy just as in ordinary quantum mechanics the position and momentum of a particle are not completely determined.

Smooth space and regular time may be illusions which appear at a macroscopic scale, emerging from a microscopic reality which is not so smooth and regular.

Quantum gravity teaches us to expect this. Wheeler (a great physicist of the last century) used to refer to the "spacetime foam".

Among presentday researchers, I think Loll's group is as advanced as any. They are not saying what is there but they are running some pretty good simulations of small universes. have some pretty reasonable conjectures.

Google "renate loll" and see if you can find that recent article at her website.
 
gravity is an extra dimension, above time and the three dimensions of space
 
No time is an extra dimension, not gravity. Gravity is a force or field, and is not a dimension.
 
If gravity were to be a dimension then wouldn't we experience fluctuation of gravity in different reference frames?!
-ibysaiyan
 
Yes. We could go on and on on why gravity is not a dimension.
 
  • #10
Gravity makes a good fabric for the universe without it we would never have found evidence of black holes, you've got to love general relativity.
 
  • #11
petm1 said:
Gravity makes a good fabric for the universe without it we would never have found evidence of black holes, you've got to love general relativity.

I don't think gravity can be considered the "fabric" of the universe. More like the fat lady sitting on the fabric having a picnic.
 
  • #12
Hah, that made me laugh quite hard. Well, it doesn't have to be a fat lady, basically its anything sitting on the fabric, of any size. But I understand what you meant by that post.
 
  • #13
Drakkith said:
I don't think gravity can be considered the "fabric" of the universe. More like the fat lady sitting on the fabric having a picnic.
Cite some references. I totally disagree.
 
  • #14
Gravity is much better described as a force upon said "fabric" rather than a constituent of the "fabric" itself. Gravity has an effect upon space-time which would explain why gravity has been shown to travel in excess of light-speed. just as a pull on a non-stretchable object wrapped around the equator would show instantaneous movement on both ends. Gravitational propagation would occur as a dependency of the amount of "Stretch" present in space-time itself.
 
  • #15
Gravity does not travel FTL. It propagates at c. An object wrapped around the equator, when pulled, would react at the speed that sound propagates through the material.
 
  • #16
Chronos said:
Cite some references. I totally disagree.

Interesting this Chronos. Gravity must have propogated through all of spacetime. Could geometry or curvature be the fabric of reality, that seems reasonable to me, everything is anchored geometrically to the Universe. Curvature is king! :)

Not a personal theory just an idea.

Has made me think though, geometry and therefore gravity and curvature are present everywhere, even if curvature is 0 it can still be explained mathematically.

All really interesting. :smile:
 
  • #17
r73826779 said:
Gravity is much better described as a force upon said "fabric" rather than a constituent of the "fabric" itself. Gravity has an effect upon space-time which would explain why gravity has been shown to travel in excess of light-speed. just as a pull on a non-stretchable object wrapped around the equator would show instantaneous movement on both ends. Gravitational propagation would occur as a dependency of the amount of "Stretch" present in space-time itself.

Both of the bolded statements are nonsense, as Drakkith has already pointed out (although more politely than me). You really should read up on basic physics before you make such pronouncements on a physics forum.
 
  • #18
Cosmo Novice said:
Interesting this Chronos. Gravity must have propogated through all of spacetime. Could geometry or curvature be the fabric of reality, that seems reasonable to me, everything is anchored geometrically to the Universe. Curvature is king! :)

Depends on what you mean by "Fabric of reality".
 
  • #19
Is it just my concept of semantics, or would we, as I believe, all be better off if no one EVERY used the term "fabric" in conjunction with spacetime, but rather used "structure" or some similar concept. "Fabric" carries over unfortunate connotations from standard English.
 
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  • #20
Agreed phinds.
 
  • #21
When I read about space-time and gravity, the idea I get is that gravity isn't really a "force" when you look at it from the perspective of space-time. It's just an apparent attractive force between two objects of mass. Objects of mass distort the shape of space-time and this distortion causes us to feel the apparent force of gravity.

That's why I'd say that space-time is the "fabric" of reality, because we are sort of sitting in it and "rolling" around in it like the marbles in the bowl with the orange at the bottom.
 
  • #22
phinds said:
Is it just my concept of semantics, or would we, as I believe, all be better off if no one EVERY used the term "fabric" in conjunction with spacetime, but rather used "structure" or some similar concept. "Fabric" carries over unfortunate connotations from standard English.

Yes I think you are right - just wanted to keep in line with the OP. When I say fabric I mean underlying structure which I think does not carry so many obvious connotations.

So to rephrase, IMO geometry is the underlying structure of the Universe - geometry exists in absolute vacuum, so the vacuum requires geometry, it exists in mass and around mass, geometry even exists in Black Holes (at least in terms of extreme curvature.) All a bit mind bending and also kind of philosophical in quantifying these things. Anyway I am musing now with little positive results so I will cease!
 
  • #23
Once you hit or run through the surface of Outer space, a thing that's never been touched before, doesn't itconsistantly change what it has been doing so far?It sure would explain the speedy satellite thing...And i agree with Marcus, i think the universe is made up of a bunch of Big peices of Matter, not some small micromollecular material..
Itsonly going to be enough for us to handle if we can step up and callit ours..Ω
 
  • #24
Do any of you believe in a place outside of the Fabrics of space?
Light,Matter,more or less space,Another universe,another'Galaxy' past the darkness of the Vaccum,so tospeak?
Obviously its to say we would truly be able to take or universe and stick in under a microscope,but come on, give me some Real ideas, i want to explore This,blindly
Today right now, some of you guys got to think,What is your part in all this
Because its not even what the answers are that matters,it just that we know they could very well exist.We haven't just been obsessing for Eons..Only a few century's,enough for this Species to coincide on what we reallly believe in??
Call me the physics Hippie;)
 
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  • #25
Ryan_wazhere said:
Once you hit or run through the surface of Outer space, a thing that's never been touched before, doesn't itconsistantly change what it has been doing so far?It sure would explain the speedy satellite thing...And i agree with Marcus, i think the universe is made up of a bunch of Big peices of Matter, not some small micromollecular material..
Itsonly going to be enough for us to handle if we can step up and callit ours..Ω

I'm sorry, I can't understand what you are saying or asking here. It doesn't seem to follow any of the normal terminology of physics.

Ryan_wazhere said:
Do any of you believe in a place outside of the Fabrics of space?
Light,Matter,more or less space,Another universe,another'Galaxy' past the darkness of the Vaccum,so tospeak?

What is the "Darkness of the Vacuum"?

Obviously its to say we would truly be able to take or universe and stick in under a microscope,but come on, give me some Real ideas, i want to explore This,blindly
Today right now, some of you guys got to think,What is your part in all this
Because its not even what the answers are that matters,it just that we know they could very well exist.We haven't just been obsessing for Eons..Only a few century's,enough for this Species to coincide on what we reallly believe in??
Call me the physics Hippie;)

What? I can't understand anything about what you're trying to get across.
 
  • #26
Drakith +1, this seems to be just strings of words with no meaning in physics.
 
  • #27
It's just another way of asking if there is anything 'outside' our universe. Logic and semantical issues aside, efforts to determine if the universe is finite or infinite are an active area of interest in cosmology.
 
  • #28
petm1 said:
I know that gravity is something that warps space, which means it must warp the fabric of space

I don't think I would use ''...something that warps space...'' here. As I understand it, and maybe I am wrong, gravity doesn't warp spacetime. Mass does, and those warps themselves are what we call gravity.
 
  • #29
Of course there is no specific answer widely agreed upon answer regarding a 'fabric'. Why would one suppose that the 'fabric of the universe' is limited to space and time.


I like Marcus' post #5 and would add that all of the universe we observe, and likely lots more, somehow originated maybe from 'nothing', at a big bang...unless you subscribe to a cyclic universe model. In any case, it doesn't appear that the forces nor energy, for example, should be excluded from consideration of a such a 'fabric'.

Seems as likely as not to me that whatever is in the vacuum may well form the unified basis for all the apparently distinct phenomena we can't quite figure out yet...like the energy of the vacuum that drives cosmological expansion.
 
  • #30
IMO Time doesn't have a beginning. I mean, how can you start time? It must have always existed, and truthfully what is time anyway? I see time as simply the motion of the universe. So if Time is infinite, then that would assume that space is also infinite. Imagine something expanding and growing for eternity, what would that look like? How many dimensions would it cross? It's like that old computer game called "Life", but imagine it continues to grow, and eventually takes on new forms and those forms again grow into something else. The patterns would continue to infinite complexity.
 

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