When Something Moves, What Fills the Gap?

Does this thought line prove an Infinite-sized Universe? Which "gap-fillers" operate in space, atmosphere, ground, underground, sea, undersea, and underseafloor?

Does a slight Big Bang occur in each gap-filling?

In atmosphere, it's air. That's where a sonic boom comes from. When you go supersonic you leave a "gap" in the air behind the plane, and the air rushing to fill that gap creates the boom you hear on the ground.

GreatTech, this may surprise you, but when something moves, vacuum is all that's left.

Now mind you, this vacuum is quickly filled with other atoms that rush to the scene to fill in the gap.

However, and this may surprise you, most of the universe - including earth, the air, and our very bodies, are almost entirely made of nothing.

Atoms aren't squashed together. There are spaces inbetween atoms and molecules. These spaces have NOTHING in them. Absolutely nothing. They are devoid of anything at all. It's as massless as the deepest vacuum in space (however, even in space there are particles like dust and such - and so this vacuum inbetween things is even more massless).

Not only that, but the space between the inner and outer portions of an atom are almost totally filled with vacuum.

Take a large football field. At the center of the field is a football helmet. Out at the furthest bleachers is an electron (which we'll represent with a speck of dust - although in truth, electrons are considered 0-dimensional). The helmet represents the nucleus of an atom. All the space inbetween the nucleus and the electron is EMPTY. Utterly devoid of anything at all.

And even the nucleus is made of protons and neutrons, which are made of quarks, which aren't quite there (in much the same fashion as the electron), and so the nucleus itslf is almost entirely devoid of anything.

So, congradulations, almost the entire universe as you know it is made out of large pockets of nearly nothing.

Ya
But Nothing is Something

Its one big Nothing!! thats definatly something!

Actually quite an insightful thought.

What I believe the poster is attempting to visualise is the expansion of the universe as a collection of moving particles that can be traced through to the point of origin in the same way as a time-lapse camera. So, the dimension of time could be thought of as an infinite number of slices... 3 dimensional still photos if you like.

This concept has its basis in visualising the universe as a fractal.

Your question.... What fills the gap when there is movement...

The Answer?...... There is no gap, only a previous version of the object that moved.

I hope I conveyed this paradigm well enough as it’s quite difficult to express in words.

NeoN HaZe

[edit on 24-1-2006 by Neon Haze]

Thank you all for your comments. Yarium, which mathematical equations would you use, besides basic distance/direction equations, to show that the interaction between emptiness and known particles produces an almost empty Universe?

Well, the most prominent forces in the universes are, in order of strength:

The Strong Nuclear Force
The Weak Nuclear Force
The Electromagnetic Force

The only thing that makes Gravity an IMPORTANT force is that it's effects continue on forever - unlike the Strong Nuclear Force which becomes non-existant past very tiny distances.

Technically speaking, the same applies to the Electromagnetic Force, but from far away (anything larger than most molecules) the overall charge of particles cancels out their strength. If you had one man pulling a truck one way, and another man pulling a truck another way, from far enough away it looks like the truck is standing still by itself.


So, let's start with the basics. The weakest force these, the Electromagnetic Force, plays the biggest role in this "empty universe". Almost all the qualities of an atom depend on the number of electrons in its orbit, and how those electrons move around. How they move around and interact with others depends on the electromagnetic force - which is immensely powerful at those tiny scales.

It's this force which keeps things from "touching" other things. A rock sitting atop a book isn't really touching the book. Instead, the negative charge of the electrons in the rock, once exceedingly close to the book, will be repulsed by the electrons in the book. So although from far away it appears there is no charge, the massively powerful, but not very far reaching charges of the electrons, keeps the two objects from merging together. If this wasn't the case, if you put two metals side by side, they would merge into one.

Now, the electromagnetic force attempts to pull the electron into the nucleus of an atom (positive attracts a negative). The Weak Nuclear Force prevents the two from combining. This is what keeps all of that space inside an atom empty.

The Strong Nuclear Force prevents the neutrons and protons within the atom from combining, and thus keeps them seperated. Other hadrons and leptons in the atom are similarily governed by the strong and weak nuclear forces respectively.

Ok, here is one theory, I have read.


Space is a series of interconnected rings or strings -1 X 10 to 43rd or 86th meters small. The universe only exists on these rings or strings and inbetween there is nothing(maybe an infinate amount of nothing) or another or many other universes.

There is also a theory that the universe blinks on and off at the rate -1 X 10 to the 43rd seconds and because you only know about existence while it's on you don't notice when it's off.













[edit on 1/25/2006 by bodebliss]

Can someone explain what happens to the vacuum of an atom when it's spolit like in a nuclear reation?

First off as far as we know there is no such thing as a classic vaccum.

The existence of ZPE, ZPF makes a classic vaccum impossible.

You should read and understand this:

65.108.189.168...