What is nothing?
20:57
I like to look at the way my brain works from time to time. Look deep within, and search for the source code that runs this immensely stupid, yet sophisticated program. Deciphering this code is fun. It lets you have unreal control over your metal capabilities. You control your thoughts and actions, not carbon based natural compounds. But I hit dead ends sometimes, dissatisfying moments when I find a chink in the armor. A thing I cannot compute, and I have a feeling no one can. Unanswered questions, exciting ideas that are stored safely beneath distracting layers of delusion and superficiality. I find things I cannot imagine. I couldn’t imagine a universe with no earth, all my happiness, sadness, worries, ideas are stored, tucked away in a tiny planet, without which there would be lack of everything I know about. But should I try enough, I could imagine it. What’s more, I can even imagine a world with no matter, just vast empty space. But what about a world with no space. A nothing that is not a lack of matter, but true nothingness, not just empty space. It’s mind boggling to even think about, because it seems impossible to do so. The universe is expanding, the Doppler Effect proved it. But is space is expanding, what lays beyond it, what is it covering as it gets bigger? I have two theories.
The first one. Imagine an expanding balloon, with polka dots to represent stars. Space is on this surface, and as the balloon expands, the space expands, as does the interstellar distances.
The second one is a little haunting. Space has been expanding since the beginning of the universe, 13.8 billion years ago. During this time, it has expanded 94 billion lightyears. If you have read the previous parts of this book, you’ll know that nothing travels faster than light through space. But it doesn’t prevent space from moving faster than light. So if space travels faster than light, by the cosmic speed limit, no one can ever go and see what lays beyond the boundary, if there is one. It’s theoretically impossible to know. It seems like the universe could not think of something to put beyond space, so it made it impossible for us to find out.
In conclusion, well, I have nothing much to say. Nothing at all, actually.
0 comments