Or the \"Knot of Truths?\" (Endings)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, June 21, 2009, 16:42 (5421 days ago) @ George Jelliss

xeno6696 wrote: "You're confusing the mathematical concepts of 0 and the empty set. "0" is not "nothing." Mathematically, the only concept that means "nothing" is the empty set."
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> This depends how you define the terms. Some axiomatisations of set theory, and cardinal number theory, define 0 as the empty set {}. The number 1 could then the set containing the empty set {{}} and so on!
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> xeno6696:"Going to 0 bits doesn't mean "no bits." The expansion they're talking about is an infinite exponential progression where all mass was contained in an infinitely small point."
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> You are talking there in terms of classical continuum mechanics. Nowadays you have to take account of quantum mechanics.
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> xeno6696: "All matter and energy were there... so instead of saying "no bits" they say "singularity." This distinguishes it from the concept of "nothing" and I doubt you'd hear too many physicists agree that the singularity qualified as "nothing." The singularity contained *everything,* and therefore cannot by definition be "nothing.""
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> You need to read Victor J. Stenger! He argues that the total ampunt of energy in the universe is zero, being made up of the positive energy tied up in mass (mainly) and the negative energy tied up in gravitational potential (and dark energy) responsible for the expansion.
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> Edit: So in a sense everything IS nothing! - Wrote the author down. I've heard his result (That the sum total of all energies is 0) - Here's a question though, there's a debate going on about whether or not dark energy/matter isn't simply the accretion of errors resulting from cosmological computations. If that's the case, then Stenger's idea is tossed out isn't it? - Another (elegant) solution is to abandon the cosmological principle altogether, thus suggesting that our location in the universe is actually NOT normal for the entire universe. - The idea is that the distribution of matter throughout the universe is not uniform, and that we live in an area of low density in terms of matter, a 'void' in comparison to other parts of the universe. This elegant explanation explains the cosmic model in a way that we need not invoke dark matter or energy at all. (Last month's Scientific American.) - Aside from that quarrel, we also have no verification that Dark energy or matter actually exist. So in that view, I can't accept Stenger's view out of hand. - Which book is it, by the way? The library shows a laundry list.