blog.adamroper.com/2007/03/07/astronomy/nothing/ -
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Last Visited: 4/12/2007
"The nothingness ofthe vacuum has come under theoretical scrutiny the past century, and what appears most plausible, and most fantastic, is that space is filled with a seething froth of virtual particles," says James C. White II, executive director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific."And space itself?At the smallest scales we can consider, it may co mingle with time in a foam of space-time."
White describes this"foam of space-time" as ubiquitous events, all defined by their positions in space and time.If empty space could be photographed, we'd see a sea of virtual particles that spring into existence and disappear.
This ultimate small world is thought to be composed of "particles that come into existence out of seemingly nothing, from the very energy of the vacuum itself, that exist for times so short that their being does not seem to violate the law that says you can't make something out of nothing," White says.
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"Einstein went on to say that matter and space affect one another," White says.
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White likens the concept to pushing an inflated balloon with your finger.The dimple you create is similar to the effect that all matter has on space.
"If you shine the beam of an incredibly bright flashlight past the edge of the Sun and off into space, your friend on the other side of the Sun will see that the light's path is bent a bit toward the Sun, which causes a dimple in space-time," he explains."In a more extreme example, if you shine your flashlight very near the edge of a black hole's event horizon - the region inside of which even light cannot escape - your friend will see that light beam bent by a huge extent."
White says we may never fully understand the nothingness of space, but with more sophisticated studies, we may eventually get used to the weird idea that nothing is always something.
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