quote:
So you are saying that empty space is expanding? Into what? I know that you said you don't care, but when I said space I meant, void of all mass and energy. You are having nothing expand into nothing. Or are you saying that the laws of physics themselves began with, and are expanding with, this initial wave that the Big Bang sent out?
This is not a bad question, because the expansion of "space" is probably the prime reason the big bang theory causes confusion. Intuition suggests that empty space is some static, unphysical, unmovable background in which objects move about. But this is purely inutition, and furthermore this intuition has been shown to be incorrect in the light of modern physics. Space has a geometry that is not necessarily Euclidean and is always dynamic. This is the "space" of Einstein and needs no more explanation than why matter can behave in the way it does. The expansion means that the distance between points increases, but implies neither that the universe is finite nor expanding into any larger volume.
Calling empty space "nothing" seems like an odd thing to do, and is again purely related to intuition and doesn't have anything to do with physical reality.
[This message has been edited by Beercules, 03-13-2004]
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