What is the fabric of the universe?

[ideal_fluid]

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?

The Milky Way's halo is what is referred to as the curvature of spacetime.

 

[Drakkith]

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.

Saying time can't have a beginning makes no more or less sense than saying it can.

The Milky Way's halo is what is referred to as the curvature of spacetime.

Not true. See the following article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_way#Halo

 

[ideal_fluid]

Not true. See the following article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_way#Halo

I'm not referring to the particles of matter which exist in the halo. I'm referring to the halo itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_way#Halo

"the Milky Way Galaxy is embedded with a large amount of hot gas in the halo"

The particles of matter which the hot gas consists of exist "in the halo".

The halo is curved spacetime.

 

[Drakkith]

The halo is curved spacetime.

I don't see how you are reaching this conclusion. Space-time curvature exists everywhere, as that is what gravity is. The halo is not made up of curved space-time. It is made up of matter in the form of stars and gas, and probably a large amount of dark matter as well.

 

[ideal_fluid]

I don't see how you are reaching this conclusion. Space-time curvature exists everywhere, as that is what gravity is. The halo is not made up of curved space-time. It is made up of matter in the form of stars and gas, and probably a large amount of dark matter as well.

Space itself has a fluidic nature. Matter is moving through space. What is mistaken to be non-baryonic dark matter anchored to matter is the state of the space connected to and neighboring massive objects.

'Hubble Finds Ghostly Ring of Dark Matter'
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/news/dark_matter_ring_feature.html

"Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope got a first-hand view of how dark matter behaves during a titanic collision between two galaxy clusters. The wreck created a ripple of dark mater, which is somewhat similar to a ripple formed in a pond when a rock hits the water."

The 'pond' is the fluidic nature of space itself. The ripple is a wave in space. The ripple is a gravitational wave.

'Galactic Pile-Up May Point to Mysterious New Dark Force in the Universe'
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/musket-ball-dark-force/

"The reason this is strange is that dark matter is thought to barely interact with itself. The dark matter should just coast through itself and move at the same speed as the hardly interacting galaxies. Instead, it looks like the dark matter is crashing into something — perhaps itself – and slowing down faster than the galaxies are. But this would require the dark matter to be able to interact with itself in a completely new an unexpected way, a “dark force” that affects only dark matter."

It's not a new force. It's the fluidic nature of space itself each of the galaxy clusters are interacting with analogous to the bow waves of two boats which pass by each other.

'Offset between dark matter and ordinary matter: evidence from a sample of 38 lensing clusters of galaxies'
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1004/1004.1475v1.pdf

"Our data strongly support the idea that the gravitational potential in clusters is mainly due to a non-baryonic fluid, and any exotic field in gravitational theory must resemble that of CDM fields very closely."

The offset is due to the galaxy clusters moving through the fluidic nature of space itself. The analogy is a submarine moving through the water. You are under water. Two miles away from you are many lights. Moving between you and the lights one mile away is a submarine. The submarine displaces the water. The state of displacement of the water causes the center of the lensing of the light propagating through the water to be offset from the center of the submarine itself. The offset between the center of the lensing of the light propagating through the water displaced by the submarine and the center of the submarine itself is going to remain the same as the submarine moves through the water. The submarine continually displaces different regions of the water. The state of the water connected to and neighboring the submarine remains the same as the submarine moves through the water even though it is not the same water the submarine continually displaces. This is what is occurring physically in nature as the galaxy clusters move through space.

'Surprise! IBEX Finds No Bow ‘Shock’ Outside our Solar System'
http://www.universetoday.com/95094/surprise-ibex-finds-no-bow-shock-outside-our-solar-system/

'“While bow shocks certainly exist ahead of many other stars, we’re finding that our Sun’s interaction doesn’t reach the critical threshold to form a shock,” said Dr. David McComas, principal investigator of the IBEX mission, “so a wave is a more accurate depiction of what’s happening ahead of our heliosphere — much like the wave made by the bow of a boat as it glides through the water.”'

The wave ahead of our heliosphere is state of the space connected to and neighboring the solar system.

Curved spacetime is the state of the space connected to and neighboring massive objects. This is what the Milky Way's halo is.

 

[Drakkith]

Space itself has a fluidic nature. Matter is moving through space. What is mistaken to be non-baryonic dark matter anchored to matter is the state of the space connected to and neighboring massive objects.

Sorry, unless you can provide a solid reference that space is fluidic then we cannot discuss it. And no, the article you linked is not saying that.

Curved spacetime is the state of the space connected to and neighboring massive objects. This is what the Milky Way's halo is.

This is not correct. I have already linked to you what the halo is. By your definition the Milky Way's arms are curved spacetime, as is everything since curved spacetime exists everywhere. They may be in curved spacetime, but it itself does not make up objects or regions. (Other than possibly a black hole)

 

[Drakkith]

The 'pond' is the fluidic nature of space itself. The ripple is a wave in space. The ripple is a gravitational wave.

No, the "pond" was dark matter

'Surprise! IBEX Finds No Bow ‘Shock’ Outside our Solar System'
http://www.universetoday.com/95094/surprise-ibex-finds-no-bow-shock-outside-our-solar-system/

'“While bow shocks certainly exist ahead of many other stars, we’re finding that our Sun’s interaction doesn’t reach the critical threshold to form a shock,” said Dr. David McComas, principal investigator of the IBEX mission, “so a wave is a more accurate depiction of what’s happening ahead of our heliosphere — much like the wave made by the bow of a boat as it glides through the water.”'

The wave ahead of our heliosphere is state of the space connected to and neighboring the solar system.

No, the wave is the interacting between the solar wind and the interstellar gas between stars. As the Sun moves through space it is moving through this gas. If we were moving fast enough we would create a "Bow Shock". But we are not, just as your linked article states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_shock

From the link above:

A bow shock is the area between a magnetosphere and an ambient medium. For stars, this is typically the boundary between their stellar wind and the interstellar medium. In a planetary magnetosphere, the bow shock is the boundary at which the speed of the solar wind abruptly drops as a result of its approach to the magnetopause.[1] The best-studied example of a bow shock is that occurring where the solar wind encounters the Earth's magnetopause, although bow shocks occur around all magnetized planets. The Earth's bow shock is about 17 kilometers (11 mi) thick[2] and located about 90,000 kilometers (56,000 mi) from the Earth.[3]

For several decades, the solar wind from the Sun was thought to form a bow shock when it collides with the surrounding interstellar medium. This long-held belief was called into question in 2012 when data from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) found the solar system to be moving slower through the interstellar medium than previous believed.[4] This new finding suggests that beyond the termination shock and heliopause surrounding the solar system there is in fact no bow shock.

 

[ideal_fluid]

Sorry, unless you can provide a solid reference that space is fluidic then we cannot discuss it. And no, the article you linked is not saying that.

The following article "reduces to GR coupled to an incompressible fluid."

'Empty Black Holes, Firewalls, and the Origin of Bekenstein-Hawking Entropy'
http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.4176

"But why an incompressible fluid? The reason comes from an attempt to solve the (old) cosmological constant problem, which is arguably the most puzzling aspect of coupling gravity to relativistic quantum mechanics [13]. Given that the natural expectation value for the vacuum of the standard model of particle physics is ∼ 60 orders of magnitude heavier than the gravitational measurements of vacuum density, it is reasonable to entertain an alternative theory of gravity where the standard model vacuum decouples from gravity. Such a theory could be realized by coupling gravity to the traceless part of the quantum mechanical energy-momentum tensor. However, the consistency/covariance of gravitational field equations then requires introducing an auxiliary fluid, the so-called gravitational aether [14]. The simplest model for gravitational aether is an incompressible fluid (with vanishing energy density, but non-vanishing pressure), which is currently consistent with all cosmological, astrophysical, and precision tests of gravity [15, 16]:

__3__
32πGN Gμν = Tμν − Tα gμν + Tμν ,
Tμν = p (uμ uν + gμν ), T μν;ν = 0,

where GN is Newton’s constant, Tμν is the matter energy momentum tensor and Tμν is the incompressible gravitational aether fluid. In vacuum, the theory reduces to GR coupled to an incompressible fluid."

The following article describes a 'back reaction' associated with the "fluidic" nature of space itself.

'An Extended Dynamical Equation of Motion, Phase Dependency and Inertial Backreaction'
http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.3458

"We hypothesize that space itself resists such surges according to a kind of induction law (related to inertia); additionally, we provide further evidence of the “fluidic” nature of space itself."

The following article describes the "space-time ideal fluid approach from general relativity."

'Fluidic Electrodynamics: On parallels between electromagnetic and fluidic inertia'
http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.4611

"It is shown that the force exerted on a particle by an ideal fluid produces two effects: i) resistance to acceleration and, ii) an increase of mass with velocity. ... The interaction between the particle and the entrained space flow gives rise to the observed properties of inertia and the relativistic increase of mass. ... Accordingly, in this framework the non resistance of a particle in uniform motion through an ideal fluid (D’Alembert’s paradox) corresponds to Newton’s first law. The law of inertia suggests that the physical vacuum can be modeled as an ideal fluid, agreeing with the space-time ideal fluid approach from general relativity."

The following article describes a modification of gravity which includes an incompressible fluid.

'Phenomenology of Gravitational Aether as a solution to the Old Cosmological Constant Problem'
http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.3955

"One proposal to address this puzzle at the semi-classical level is to decouple quantum vacuum from space-time geometry via a modification of gravity that includes an incompressible fluid, known as Gravitational Aether. In this paper, we discuss classical predictions of this theory along with its compatibility with cosmological and experimental tests of gravity. We argue that deviations from General Relativity (GR) in this theory are sourced by pressure or vorticity."

This is not correct. I have already linked to you what the halo is. By your definition the Milky Way's arms are curved spacetime, as is everything since curved spacetime exists everywhere. They may be in curved spacetime, but it itself does not make up objects or regions. (Other than possibly a black hole)

The matter which the Milky Way's arms consist of is not curved spacetime. The matter which the Milky Way's arms consist of curves spacetime, as does all of the matter the Milky Way consists of.

 

[ideal_fluid]

No, the "pond" was dark matter

That is what I am saying is incorrect in mainstream physics. Dark matter is not anchored to matter. Matter moves through and displaces the fluidic nature of space itself. That is why 'dark matter' is left behind when galaxy clusters collide. Space is left behind as the 'bow waves' of the galaxy clusters interact.

No, the wave is the interacting between the solar wind and the interstellar gas between stars. As the Sun moves through space it is moving through this gas. If we were moving fast enough we would create a "Bow Shock". But we are not, just as your linked article states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_shock

From the link above:

A bow shock is the area between a magnetosphere and an ambient medium. For stars, this is typically the boundary between their stellar wind and the interstellar medium. In a planetary magnetosphere, the bow shock is the boundary at which the speed of the solar wind abruptly drops as a result of its approach to the magnetopause.[1] The best-studied example of a bow shock is that occurring where the solar wind encounters the Earth's magnetopause, although bow shocks occur around all magnetized planets. The Earth's bow shock is about 17 kilometers (11 mi) thick[2] and located about 90,000 kilometers (56,000 mi) from the Earth.[3]

For several decades, the solar wind from the Sun was thought to form a bow shock when it collides with the surrounding interstellar medium. This long-held belief was called into question in 2012 when data from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) found the solar system to be moving slower through the interstellar medium than previous believed.[4] This new finding suggests that beyond the termination shock and heliopause surrounding the solar system there is in fact no bow shock.

Particles of matter exist in the interstellar medium in quantities less than in any vacuum artificially created on Earth. No matter how fast the solar system moves through the particles it is not the particles themselves which wave. It is the fluidic nature of space itself which waves.

'NASA's Voyager Hits New Region at Solar System Edge'
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/dec/HQ_11-402_AGU_Voyager.html

"Voyager is showing that what is outside is pushing back. ... Like cars piling up at a clogged freeway off-ramp, the increased intensity of the magnetic field shows that inward pressure from interstellar space is compacting it."

Particles of matter exist in the interstellar medium in quantities less than in any vacuum artificially created on Earth. There are too few particles of matter which exist in the interstellar medium to be able to push back and cause the magnetic field to pile up.

It is the fluidic nature of space itself, which the particles of matter exist in, which is the interstellar medium. It is space itself which is pushing back and exerting inward pressure toward the solar system.

 

[Chronos]

This 'fluidic nature of space' notion is, at best, overly speculative. Please read the forum rules.

 

[ideal_fluid]

This 'fluidic nature of space' notion is, at best, overly speculative. Please read the forum rules.

I think a 'new dark force' is more speculative then understanding it is space itself which has mass but I will stop posting on this thread.

'Galactic Pile-Up May Point to Mysterious New Dark Force in the Universe'
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/musket-ball-dark-force/

"The reason this is strange is that dark matter is thought to barely interact with itself. The dark matter should just coast through itself and move at the same speed as the hardly interacting galaxies. Instead, it looks like the dark matter is crashing into something — perhaps itself – and slowing down faster than the galaxies are. But this would require the dark matter to be able to interact with itself in a completely new an unexpected way, a “dark force” that affects only dark matter."

Thanks.

 

[SeaChef]

Whatever the fabric of the universe is, it certainly is able to extend the effect of gravity and/or mass. Model our solar system to scale using a basketball for the sun (9.5"), the Earth would be less than a tenth of an inch in diameter (.088") and 86 feet away.

What makes it so that two bodies can still affect each other at such huge and vast distances?

 

[Drakkith]

Whatever the fabric of the universe is, it certainly is able to extend the effect of gravity and/or mass. Model our solar system to scale using a basketball for the sun (9.5"), the Earth would be less than a tenth of an inch in diameter (.088") and 86 feet away.

What makes it so that two bodies can still affect each other at such huge and vast distances?

I think this is a bad way of attempting to understand gravity. The fact is that gravitation acts at a distance similar to how the EM force does. The reason they do this is unknown. They are fundamental forces of nature and we cannot explain them in terms of anything more fundamental, so we simply accept that they act according to certain laws, one of which is that they act between objects with decreasing strength as the distance increases. Trying to bring the "fabric of the universe" into this does nothing but cause confusion.

 

[ideal_fluid]

I think this is a bad way of attempting to understand gravity. The fact is that gravitation acts at a distance similar to how the EM force does. The reason they do this is unknown. They are fundamental forces of nature and we cannot explain them in terms of anything more fundamental, so we simply accept that they act according to certain laws, one of which is that they act between objects with decreasing strength as the distance increases. Trying to bring the "fabric of the universe" into this does nothing but cause confusion.

The following article "reduces to GR coupled to an incompressible fluid."

'Empty Black Holes, Firewalls, and the Origin of Bekenstein-Hawking Entropy'
http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.4176

"But why an incompressible fluid? The reason comes from an attempt to solve the (old) cosmological constant problem, which is arguably the most puzzling aspect of coupling gravity to relativistic quantum mechanics [13]. Given that the natural expectation value for the vacuum of the standard model of particle physics is ∼ 60 orders of magnitude heavier than the gravitational measurements of vacuum density, it is reasonable to entertain an alternative theory of gravity where the standard model vacuum decouples from gravity. Such a theory could be realized by coupling gravity to the traceless part of the quantum mechanical energy-momentum tensor. However, the consistency/covariance of gravitational field equations then requires introducing an auxiliary fluid, the so-called gravitational aether [14]. The simplest model for gravitational aether is an incompressible fluid (with vanishing energy density, but non-vanishing pressure), which is currently consistent with all cosmological, astrophysical, and precision tests of gravity [15, 16]:

__3__
32πGN Gμν = Tμν − Tα gμν + Tμν ,
Tμν = p (uμ uν + gμν ), T μν;ν = 0,

where GN is Newton’s constant, Tμν is the matter energy momentum tensor and Tμν is the incompressible gravitational aether fluid. In vacuum, the theory reduces to GR coupled to an incompressible fluid."

The following article describes a 'back reaction' associated with the "fluidic" nature of space itself.

'An Extended Dynamical Equation of Motion, Phase Dependency and Inertial Backreaction'
http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.3458

"We hypothesize that space itself resists such surges according to a kind of induction law (related to inertia); additionally, we provide further evidence of the “fluidic” nature of space itself."

The following article describes the "space-time ideal fluid approach from general relativity."

'Fluidic Electrodynamics: On parallels between electromagnetic and fluidic inertia'
http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.4611

"It is shown that the force exerted on a particle by an ideal fluid produces two effects: i) resistance to acceleration and, ii) an increase of mass with velocity. ... The interaction between the particle and the entrained space flow gives rise to the observed properties of inertia and the relativistic increase of mass. ... Accordingly, in this framework the non resistance of a particle in uniform motion through an ideal fluid (D’Alembert’s paradox) corresponds to Newton’s first law. The law of inertia suggests that the physical vacuum can be modeled as an ideal fluid, agreeing with the space-time ideal fluid approach from general relativity."

The following article describes a modification of gravity which includes an incompressible fluid.

'Phenomenology of Gravitational Aether as a solution to the Old Cosmological Constant Problem'
http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.3955

"One proposal to address this puzzle at the semi-classical level is to decouple quantum vacuum from space-time geometry via a modification of gravity that includes an incompressible fluid, known as Gravitational Aether. In this paper, we discuss classical predictions of this theory along with its compatibility with cosmological and experimental tests of gravity. We argue that deviations from General Relativity (GR) in this theory are sourced by pressure or vorticity."

 

[ImaLooser]

I think this is a bad way of attempting to understand gravity. The fact is that gravitation acts at a distance similar to how the EM force does. The reason they do this is unknown. They are fundamental forces of nature and we cannot explain them in terms of anything more fundamental, so we simply accept that they act according to certain laws, one of which is that they act between objects with decreasing strength as the distance increases. Trying to bring the "fabric of the universe" into this does nothing but cause confusion.

The inverse square law comes from basic conservation laws. If we imagine a gravitational flux, it would total the same through any surface that encloses the source, just like EM.

 

[Dale]

Closed pending moderation