There's Something About Nothing

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Nothing
by LeeAundra Temescu
From the June 2007 issue, published online June 5, 2007

1 There is vastly more nothing than something. Roughly 74 percent of the universe is “nothing,” or what physicists call dark energy; 22 percent is dark matter, particles we cannot see. Only 4 percent is baryonic matter, the stuff we call something.

2 And even something is mostly nothing. Atoms overwhelmingly consist of empty space. Matter’s solidity is an illusion caused by the electric fields created by subatomic particles.

3 There is more and more nothing every second. In 1998 astronomers measuring the expansion of the universe determined that dark energy is pushing apart the universe at an ever-accelerating speed. The discovery of nothing—and its ability to influence the fate of the cosmos—is considered the most important astronomical finding of the past decade.

4 But even nothing has a weight. The energy in dark matter is equivalent to a tiny mass; there is about one pound of dark energy in a cube of empty space 250,000 miles on each side.

5 In space, no one can hear you scream: Sound, a mechanical wave, cannot travel through a vacuum. Without matter to vibrate through, there is only silence.

6 So what if Kramer falls in a forest? Luckily, electromagnetic waves, including light and radio waves, need no medium to travel through, letting TV stations broadcast endless reruns of Seinfeld, the show about nothing.

7 Light can travel through a vacuum, but there is nothing to refract it. Alas for extraterrestrial romantics, stars do not twinkle in outer space.

8 Black holes are not holes or voids; they are the exact opposite of nothing, being the densest concentration of mass known in the universe.

9 “Zero” was first seen in cuneiform tablets written around 300 B.C. by Babylonians who used it as a placeholder (to distinguish 36 from 306 or 360, for example). The concept of zero in its mathematical sense was developed in India in the fifth century.

10 Any number divided by zero is . . . nothing, not even zero. The equation is mathematically impossible.

11 It is said that Abdülhamid II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900s, had censors expunge references to H2O from chemistry books because he was sure it stood for “Hamid the Second is nothing.”

12 Medieval art was mostly flat and two-dimensional until the 15th century, when the Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi conceived of the vanishing point, the place where parallel lines converge into nothingness. This allowed for the development of perspective in art.

13 Aristotle once wrote, “Nature abhors a vacuum,” and so did he. His complete rejection of vacuums and voids and his subsequent influence on centuries of learning prevented the adoption of the concept of zero in the Western world until around the 13th century, when Italian bankers found it to be extraordinarily useful in financial transactions.

14 Vacuums do not suck things. They create spaces into which the surrounding atmosphere pushes matter.

15 Creatio ex nihilo, the belief that the world was created out of nothing, is one of the most common themes in ancient myths and religions.

16 Current theories suggest that the universe was created out of a state of vacuum energy, that is, nothing.

17 But to a physicist there is no such thing as nothing. Empty space is instead filled with pairs of particles and antiparticles, called virtual particles, that quickly form and then, in accordance with the law of energy conservation, annihilate each other in about 10-25 second.

18 So Aristotle was right all along.

19 These virtual particles popping in and out of existence create energy. In fact, according to quantum mechanics, the energy contained in all the power plants and nuclear weapons in the world doesn’t equal the theoretical energy contained in the empty spaces between these words.

20 In other words, nothing could be the key to the theory of everything.

transits (personal reminder)

A need to be the center of attention takes hold in your life now - a craving to give and to be appreciated for your gifts. This can be an expansive, creative, and even romantic phase, a time you'll look back on with pride and fondness. A greater appreciation for things of value (and the idea of value itself) is in order now.

The emphasis is on creating more viable situations in your life. This means pulling apart the ones that no longer work for you, and restructuring things to incorporate circumstances that will ultimately satisfy you. To balance tension, enjoy a relaxing time with friends in a favorite hang out.

Illusions and delusions can wear the mask of true inspiration, so thread your way among them to the truth and don't fall for the first fantasy that comes to mind. Possibilities may evaporate as quickly as they appear, and that is for the best -- better to let them go than seize on what will not support you.

Your career, reputation, and most important personal goals receive a boost now, primarily through your own initiative and willingness to assert yourself. You feel a surge of positive energy. Superiors or people in authority will also notice you now and can help you immensely, enabling you to fulfill something you are striving for.

This is an excellent time for accomplishing all kinds of work. Your energy is high, and you have faith in your ability to achieve. Usually your health is quite good now, and this influence is extremely favorable for all kinds of physical activity. In fact it would be very bad not to be physically active, because these energies must have an outlet. If they do not, they can cause problems even when they are basically positive. Nevertheless you are in a self-assertive mood today. If you have to fight with someone to maintain your position in any matter, you will be able to do it effectively. You are not inclined to back down, although you will seek out a common ground where the two of you can agree, if there is any.

The Beauty of Black Holes

Einstein’s equations and general theory work just as well in whichever direction time is flowing. The same equations that describe matter and radiation plunging to their death into a singularity at the center of a black hole, can be flipped around to describe matter and radiation exploding from a singularity and spreading out through space-time to birth a Universe.

In other words, the same energy that creates matter is the very same energy that destroys it, they are of the same source, which, to me, means that nothing can ever really be lost or destroyed. Things simply shift in and out of our awareness or assume different forms.

More on this later, maybe.

I AM

Existing for the sake of existence, in order To Be, a thing, a noun, a subject unfolded out of the objective. I present to you my ego, I, presently (now) in a perceived state of singularity.

some thoughts on time

1.Newton's 3rd law states that for every action(force), there is a reaction(force); the ground we stand on is pushing up as much as we push down on it. It also says that the action and reaction are simultaneous, equal & opposite, and that they cancel out exactly. At first glance this makes a compelling case for no time/space, no change/movement, because everytime you fall down, the earth was moving up toward you as much as you were moving toward it.

2. In actuality, laws of motion alone do not account for the arrow of time. the arrow of time is only present in thermodynamics (heat energy). Specifically, the theory of entropy attempts to account for the flow of time on a forward line through the idea that everything is in a constant state of decay, that things are moving from order to disorder. Scientists give the example that linear time (cause/effect) shows itself itself in the process of ice cubes melting into h20, but the reverse is equally true - water molecules are constantly attempting to return back to a solid state in their natural cycle, so it is only half truth to speak of the melting of water, a chaotic event, as merely a unilateral event, or to say that it proves the existence of time on a line. It is actually a recycling, a revolution, a process of order to disorder to order.


3.Newton states that objects only come to a halt because they are being influenced (acted on) by an outside force (notice that the language of the theory states that the object halts because it meets the outside force. it does not state that an object halts WHEN it is is being influenced by an outside force. Time does not factor into the law). Galileo stated that, left to their own devices, objects will move in circles, all things revolve. To be more concrete, an object moving towards the horizon forever must be following a circular path around the surface of the earth, and would eventually end up back where it started. Marrying Netwon and Galileo, an object would continue to cycle, revolve until it returns to its original state, UNLESS it is acted on by an outside force (action/reaction).

4.The arrow of time (cause/effect or act/react) is only shown in the process of water melting because the water is being acted on by an outside force (the observer and heat energy), halting its return to its initial rest state; otherwise, ice melting into water would be attempting to refreeze back into ice, or would have never had any need to change (into water) in the first place, thus remaining in its unchanged state, solid.

5.Time is only present in one limited dimension of experience, only where change is perceived, and change is only perceived in one snapshot of the process, because that process is, as a whole, a cycle that is attempting to return to its initial state to re-meet itself (recurrence plot).

6. “All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.” - Toni Morrison

*these base principles have a number of moral, philosophical, and spiritual implications for me

some questions on thoughts that i'd like to answer or have answered

what is the purpose of thought? would we be any better or worse off if we did not have the ability to think, or if we didnt know that we could think? How could we, would we know that we were not thinking; can a non-thought exist and would thought be able to exist without acknowledgment? what if there were no words, how would thoughts be, what would they take the form of (some philosophers argue that thoughts can take the form of images, but i'm not convinced that word and image can be separated)?