[HN Gopher] We Need to Study Nothing
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       We Need to Study Nothing
        
       Author : dnetesn
       Score  : 41 points
       Date   : 2022-08-04 11:44 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (nautil.us)
 (TXT) w3m dump (nautil.us)
        
       | kmerroll wrote:
       | Came here looking for this:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8An2SxNFvmU
       | 
       | Left disappointed.
        
       | Agamus wrote:
       | Do any experts know if there is any overlap in this research with
       | the study of quantum fluctuations in empty space?
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/zNVQfWC_evg?t=1260 (David Tong: Quantum Field
       | Theory)
        
       | golemotron wrote:
       | This might be the most Nautilus article ever.
        
       | mandis wrote:
       | If the universe is expanding outwards, are these voids also
       | moving similarly? I just cant ever seem to reconcile the
       | expansion theory with the theory of galaxies/voids merging or
       | colliding.
        
         | inversalAutoDoc wrote:
         | Does a void move?
         | 
         | No really, by our current definition of 'void', does a void
         | move or is its position and shape solely defined by the objects
         | moving into and around it? Separately, is the void inside the
         | universe the same as the void outside the universe, or is it
         | fundamentally different somehow?
         | 
         | I don't expect we'll ever answer the second question, but the
         | first is able to be answered by how we choose to define the
         | term 'void'.
        
           | jmholla wrote:
           | That sounds almost like the same thing as asking do holes
           | move, or do electrons move? Yes, to both. The movement of one
           | is made apparent by the other.
           | 
           | Of course, I'm almost certainly wrong on both accounts.
        
           | ziddoap wrote:
           | Voids are a description of an area that has relatively less
           | matter density than the average of the universe, not objects
           | themselves, so I'm not sure what you mean by a void "moving".
           | 
           | > _Separately, is the void inside the universe the same as
           | the void outside the universe, or is it fundamentally
           | different somehow?_
           | 
           | By definition they are different. Voids, as I said, are areas
           | within the universe that have relatively less matter density.
           | Key thing being that they are part of the universe, whereas
           | 'outside the universe' is, well, not part of this universe.
        
             | JadeNB wrote:
             | > Voids are a description of an area that has relatively
             | less matter density than the average of the universe, not
             | objects themselves, so I'm not sure what you mean by a void
             | "moving".
             | 
             | I think that was exactly the point that your parent
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32342806 was making:
             | 
             | > Does a void move? No really, by our current definition of
             | 'void', does a void move or is its position and shape
             | solely defined by the objects moving into and around it?
             | 
             | That is, I think that they were not asking a factual
             | question--"obviously voids can move, but do they?"--but
             | rather a sort of ontological question--"does it even make
             | sense to ask whether voids move?"--just as you are.
        
         | ozzydave wrote:
         | Some areas of space have a more matter than others e.g.
         | galactic clusters, where the relative speed of the galaxies to
         | each other is higher than the expansion. This video from the
         | excellent Space Time series helps explain it:
         | https://youtu.be/bUHZ2k9DYHY
        
           | PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
           | From TFA:
           | 
           | > The motions of individual galaxies are hundreds of times
           | larger than the effect of cosmological expansion
        
         | svachalek wrote:
         | From the perspective of any galaxy, most other galaxies are
         | moving away from it, "outward". But some galaxies are close
         | enough to form clusters that are gravitationally bound, which
         | can cause them to orbit each other or merge.
         | 
         | We can say the visible universe is expanding outwards, because
         | we see light from more and more distant things as the universe
         | ages. But the actual (not just visible) universe may be
         | infinitely large, we don't know what's beyond the range we can
         | see (limited by the speed of light, unless we discover
         | something radically new about physics we can never see
         | farther). So if you look at the universe from a holistic point
         | of view, not just from our perspective which makes us the
         | center of the universe, expansion may not really be the best
         | way to think about it. It's more like the size of the empty
         | parts is increasing relative to the size of the not-empty
         | parts.
        
           | swid wrote:
           | We don't necessarily see more light as the universe ages, nor
           | do we see farther away. The universe is expanding, and the
           | farther something is, the faster it is moving away from us.
           | It can even be moving faster than the speed of light relative
           | to us, because the space between us is growing, and more
           | empty space between us, the more this extra stacks up. When
           | this happens, something is beyond the visible universe - that
           | light can never reach us.
           | 
           | So there are two ways we cannot see something - if the
           | universe is not old enough for light to reach us yet, or if
           | there is too much new universe being created in between us
           | and the light for the light to catch up to us.
           | 
           | In a far enough future, there will be no other galaxies in
           | the sky as all the matter will be too far away for light to
           | reach us.
        
       | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2022-08-04 23:02 UTC)