Is Empty Space Really Empty?

0:00 - Intro
2:20 - Whole Lotta Nothing
10:14 - Otto's Vacuum
18:03 - There's Always Something
22:07 - Vacuum Energy
27:29 - Is Space Really Empty?
36:24 - Gravitational Waves
39:40 - Thank You

What’s floating around in space between all the stuff? Are there any truly empty places in the universe? What is the “fabric” of spacetime? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!

Keep those questions about space, science, astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology coming to #AskASpaceman for COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF TIME AND SPACE!

[snivla]

Dr Sutter a true hero of mine.. Im uneducated and 53 this year.. Since ive listened to this channel and seen other great scholars on TV im not so uneducated as I was and it really helps my mental illness . Thank you so very very much for your time sir .x

[Ai-hedp]

Space is best imagined as another type of water.

[zebrachess]

Excellent fun approach - the presence of absence, like footprints in snow

[interdictr]

Love the long form video, thankyou for all the effort! You make us less ignorant.

[wcsxwcsx]

Nothingness is what all the somethings in the universe move through.

[jaylove]

Chairs and babies catching strays in the first 5 min 😅😅😅

[Brntable]

Great show! Actually, another great show!

[ryannunes]

100% agree space has a real structure. You are always one of the few who makes me feel not insane. Been working hard on the maths.... Promise I won't message you about it 😂😂😂😂. Great video, Paul.

[Gridl]

Thank you for another brain exercise. I love yours. Listening to both sides and trying to get a mental picture didn't make my brain hurt but I may have felt a momentary probability storm.

[edstauffer]

The fascination with electrons began after reading a report about electrons moving faster than light. It seemed that electrons disappeared and reappeared at distances and time periods that meant that they had to move faster than the speed of light which physicists said was impossible. The most logical answer was that it was not the same electron. Vacuum energy appears and disappears all the time. It all had to come from somewhere.

The obvious answer was that there was a soup of the building blocks of matter outside of spacetime. Unfortunately we have yet to figure out how to see it.

Is it a wave or a particle? Quantum mechanics makes more sense to me if there are actually waves of particles outside of space time that pop in and out when we do a measurement . Outside of spacetime they could instantly be where they need to be, as there is no space between the pieces that fit so they can be there in no time. It was not a big jump to realize that these particles could be part of the missing dark matter. By definition waves move, flow and circulate. On our planet we have the water cycle, water runs downhill pools and accumulates. If it becomes warm enough it evaporates. It then joins other particles in the atmosphere and eventually falls back to earth restarting the whole process. The evidence suggests that like water, dark matter can phase transition. This phase transition would accelerate waves of particles that make up the fabric of spacetime and gravity would pull them back down, these would be the drivers of the motion in the dark matter cycle.

I believe that the entirety of the universe formed as a pocket of spacetime all at once similar to a burst of vacuum energy. Once the fabric of the universe cooled most of it condensed and collapsed into swirling pools which pulled the baryonic matter into direct collapse black holes with the eddies forming the stars and galaxies. The dark matter of the fabric spacetime would collide and spray away from the center rather than be swallowed by the black hole. It would then rain back down on the plane of the galaxy. These pools of dark matter would only occupy about 0.1% of their former volume. The deepest gravity wells would experience time dilation and thus time would pass much more rapidly for areas not in them. Once stars and AGN formed they would begin the process of evaporating the liquid dark matter.. On average throughout the universe time would speed up from that point on while particle mass would slowly decrease as the average liquid dark matter content decreased. The altered ratio of dark matter to baryonic matter resulting from the vaporization process would then have influenced the formation and evolution of galaxies. Progressively smaller stars would have formed due to the shallower gravity wells. Larger diameter galaxies would also have evolved due to the lower LDM concentrations

Like the clouds of water that surround our planet, clouds of dark matter surround our galaxy. These clouds like fog banks can settle into the galaxy or if two systems collide actually rain down causing bursts of star formation. Anywhere in the universe can contain a deep pool of dark matter as well as any area can become a desert..

Dark matter is like the ocean it has currents and streams. It also has different salinities (concentrations of normal matter) depending on how much dust and gas has been accumulated.

The distribution of dark matter in and around galaxies could also be explained by phase transitioning dark matter. The closer to the plane the higher the liquid dark matter content. As this dark matter encounters stars, planets and moons some of it is converted to gaseous dark matter and begins to rise away from the plane due to its phase transition acceleration. This causes it to circulate away from the plane until it encounters gas or dust and rains back into the gravity well. This whole process sweeps dust and gas back toward the middle of the galaxy. The plane of the galaxy would look like lake country with the flow from overflowing gravity wells streaming outward along the plane. This would be the (DDDM) double disk dark matter. Not necessarily a solid layer but more like a filamentary structure along the plane of the galaxy. The majority of dark matter that comprises the fabric of spacetime is movable. Mother nature was smart enough to ensure that wherever more material accumulated that the fabric that contained our spacetime bubble also accumulated more mass to contain it.

Eventually solid dark matter (SDM) begins to form at the barycenter of the galaxy. It should be distinguishable from the stars and black holes that circle the SMB as it will not feed on gas or dust.

The filaments of the cosmic web, like galactic halos are accumulations of dark matter, dust, gas and galaxies that collectively drain back to the depths of the gravity well to eventually feed galactic clusters. If not for the GDM and entrained LDM blasted out by the AGN and stars there would be considerably less circulation to move the gas and dust back to the depths of the gravity wells.

[FrancisFjordCupola]

I think one issue is absolutism in definition. Somewhat related to the uncertainty principle; the more absolute and specific the definition, the less useful it becomes. We consider voids areas in spacetime where the average matter content is of magnitudes less. You could take that to describe a void as having a certain density, or a pressure. And if you can describe something in certain terms... ask if nothingness can even be described. For any quantity assigned something representing it cannot be nothing because it is something described.

So let's call a vacuum something near-empty. Compared to air, Earth's atmosphere, if we can observe something within a vacuum, we can see a phenomenon in isolation and perhaps more clearly. And the big voids... do they locally influence the expansion of space? If it does, is it because a relative lack of mass? Plenty of things to ponder on without any "pure vacuum".

Edit: and yes, please, Michelson-Morley.

[GeorgeStar]

Space is made of SPACE! That's why they call it SPACE!

[jcdisci]

Is it not true that 'nothing' is NOT 'something', rather is it not the ABSENCE of 'something'? Much as 'cold' is not a state within itself, but is an absence of 'heat', just as 'darkness' is the absence of 'light'?

[neIntangible]

The real mystery is why vacuum is spelled with two u's.

[xptical]

Space is made of everything. Virtually anything I can think of is in space.

[prometheus]

I don't agree with the premise, a vacuum isn't truly nothing. For it is still a space. True nothing isn't a space or a void. So a vacuum and nothing can both exist. Since nothing isn't a vacuum. Great video. All very important questions. We need to understand what space is, more effectively

[GodIsAnAtheist]

Hello Dr Sutter, i love space, i have a question. Is the plank lenght increasing between Galaxies and decreasing inside black holes?
That could explain space expansion without dark energy and the space is the same as it was in the begining. Thanks, love your chanel.

[youtubebane]

But space also can be a terminating duality like a shadow which is space without light or 0°temperature in which is 0° thermal energy

[Objectivebeatz]

Space is time, so no space = no time. No time means theirs nothing.. 🤔

[d_s_x]

I just accepted that nothing can't exist and moved on.