Is the Fabric of Spacetime a Physical Object?

[ShadowKnight]

I've been reading a lot about gravity lately, trying to understand it as best I can. When I think of gravity, I find it easiest to imagine the rubber sheet analogy to explain the spacetime curvature. Gravity is supposed to be caused by the curvature of spacetime. So the thing that I have no insight on is the 'fabric' of spacetime. What is it? It's talked about like it's a physical object in many texts that I've read. "A tear in the fabric of spacetime." You need something to tear or put a hole in, right? A spinning black hole will spin spacetime near the event horizon - spin what? It's also the medium that gravitational waves travel through. This again requires (in my mind) some kind of physical object, ie. sound waves travel through air - air is the physical object.

Another puzzling thing I've seen several times is the idea that the spacetime fabric travels faster than c as the universe expands and has done so since the big bang. The fact that it has always been faster than c satisfies the theory that nothing can CROSS the light barrier, but if the spacetime fabric is some sort of physical object, wouldn't it have mass? How can something with mass go faster than c - that would require infinite energy, wouldn't it? Would a (hypothetical) observer who is outside of our spacetime see the universe and everything in it moving faster than c (relative to their stationary position outside of spacetime) with the 'flow' of the spacetime fabric?

I'd appreciate any insight any of you could provide me on this. Any links would be very helpful as well.

 

[wolram]

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s275021.htm
this link is a starting point.
but i think the stepping stones of this subject
are very insecure.

 

[ShadowKnight]

Thank you Wolram - this article did provide some insight as well as a place to start. This article suggests that spacetime is made of one of three things:
1. Graviton particles (has the graviton ever been detected?)
2. Cosmic strings
3. Quantum foam
I've done reading on 2 & 3 and am fascinated by both, but it never occurred to me that either of these could actually BE the spacetime fabric. Still, I'd appreciate any additional insight on this subject that any of you can provide. I'm still curious about my second question in the original post.

 

[Eh]

Curved spacetime often gets called the aether of Einstein. But it is a little misleading, since the aether of old is out the window. To once again quote the http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/aphyrel.html:

"...First of all, space-time is not a fabric. Space and time are not tangible 'things' in the same way that water and air are. It is incorrect to think of them as a 'medium' at all. No physicist or astronomer versed in these issues considers space-time to be a truly physical medium, however, that is the way in which our minds prefer to conceptualize this concept, and has done so since the 19th century. Back then physicists talked of an ether. Today we know that ethers of the kind that behave like a physical medium are simply not present.

We really do not know what space-time is, other than two clues afforded by quantum mechanics and general relativity. General relativity as developed by Albert Einstein, says, and this is a direct quote from Einstein, that

"Space-time does not claim existence in its own right, but only as a structural quality of the [gravitational] field"."

The gravitational field is spacetime. It can exist in the absence of matter and energy as a field. Lee Smolin briefly covers the concept of the field in "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity".

 

[meteor]

the general theory of relativity says that nothing can travel faster than light in spacetime, but not forbids spacetime itself to surpass this limit
i agree that spacetime has to be composed of some substance, after all gravity waves are ripples of spacetime

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by Eh
...this is a direct quote from Einstein, that

"Space-time does not claim existence in its own right, but only as a structural quality of the [gravitational] field"."[/i]

this is a good quote
can you supply a source
I've seen Einstein quoted to this effect in other places but
have never managed to track down the book or article or interview by him where he said it
always someone else quoting einst. without a precise reference

thanks in advance if you have a lead on this!

 

[marcus]

Eh, thanks for the Einst. quote.
I found a reference to a piece he wrote in 1952
and appears in the umpteenth edition of one of his books
so I posted the link (to a longer passage with that quote in it)
in math forum

 

[Eh]

Was it also in his rather philosophical book, "Relativity: The Special and the General Theory"?

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by meteor
i agree that spacetime has to be composed of some substance, after all gravity waves are ripples of spacetime

Define substance.

 

[marcus]

Yeah it was something he added in 1952 to the 15th edition of that book.

Eh, the quote you raised opens up the Great Wormcan of Relativity
Rovelli spends a couple of chapters discussing it including
how Einstein got hung up on it for three years 1912-1915
(called the problem "the meaning of the coordinates")

Rovelli's draft book online at his website has the best philosoph
discussion of these questions I know, you may know others

crux is that in general relativity the field has physical meaning
but the equation relating it and matter is invariant under smooth deformations so that

space-time points have no physical meaning---do not exist

there is no Newtonian absolute space and time upon which
these fields are defined

it is not like in 9th grade where you got handed a piece of absolute graph paper and drew curves and stuff on it

the theory is background-independent

so any background you use is just a provisional convenience and replaceable at whim by a smooth deformation

points in spacetime have no meaning, only EVENTS like
the intersection of two worldlines have meaning
because a crossing of paths remains a crossing of paths even after a smooth deformation ('diffeomorphism')

the main equation of GR is "diffeomorphism-invariant" and thus the theory is background independent and cannot be based on
some arbitrarily chosen absolute space-time

this has been hard for everyone to assimilate

and has interfered with attempts to build a quantum GR
because quantum theories tend to be built on an absolute space-time (the 9-th grader's piece of graph paper, or the world as recommended to us by Messers Newton and Minkowski)

If the history of science issues interest you, do you have a link to Rovelli's book----the history of western conception of space and time is fascinating and the whole thing sort of comes to the fore
in quantizing GR.

 

[meteor]

I define substance like something that exists, in contraposition of a hypothetical pure vacuum. In a pure vacuum gravity waves cannot exist (there's nothing to wave). For example in LQG, the substance can be the same loops. In string field theory that substance can be the string fields (though I'm not sure in this case)

 

[thed]

Originally posted by meteor
In a pure vacuum gravity waves cannot exist (there's nothing to wave).

One of the hardest things to accept in modern physics is that waves can propagate without a medium.

The idea first comes in with Maxwell's Equations. An EM wave is self propagating , even in a vacuum. Put another way, the speed of an EM wave is not related to the pressure of anything, just two constants, the electric permittivity and magnetic permeability of free space.

What may help in understanding spacetime is that it is 4D whereas our sense are only used to 3. When we refer to spacetime 'bending' it bends in 3D, it may be flat in 4D.

To appreciate this I like the analogy Kip Thorne uses in 'Black Holes and Worm Holes". We assume that light has constant velocity in vacuo, more precisely it is invariant between inertial frames, and follows the shortest distance between two points. We also know that gravity causes things to accelerate in it's presence. So what happens when light passes through a gravitational field?

The answer to the conundrum is that it changes direction, the speed is scalar so does not change, but change direction you change velocity and it accelerates. But that means light follows a curved path in the prescence of gravity.

What we are seeing is light following the shortest path in 4D, which to us is a curve in 3D. The path it follows is spacetime. It is purely a geometric construct.

Did that make sense?

 

[wolram]

not if you read this.....


http://www.intalek.com/Index/Projects/References/glossary1.pdf

"the great speed of light cover up".

 

[Hurkyl]

I wonder how superluminal transmission of Beethoven's 40'th symphony sounded.

 

[thed]

Originally posted by wolram
not if you read this.....
http://www.intalek.com/Index/Projects/References/glossary1.pdf
"the great speed of light cover up".

Got as far as Tom Bearden and starting laughing.
http://www.google.com/search?q=tom+...illa-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

 

[ShadowKnight]

Originally posted by thed
What may help in understanding spacetime is that it is 4D whereas our sense are only used to 3. When we refer to spacetime 'bending' it bends in 3D, it may be flat in 4D.

My senses are certainly only used to 3D
Can anyone out there explain this analogy to me using a 2D / 3D example? I feel like I'm almost to an understanding but the light hasn't fully come on yet.

 

[meteor]

I think that the comparation of light with gravity waves is erroneous
Light is not a vibration of some pre-existing field. It's a self-propagating wave with electric and magnetic fields continously inducing one another
Gravity waves are vibrations of some pre-existing field: the gravitational field (aka spacetime)

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by meteor

Gravity waves are vibrations of some pre-existing field: the gravitational field (aka spacetime)

what you say here about gravity waves is consistent with
what I've read

but what you say about the electric field not being "pre-existing"
worries me. I think of the electric field as existing throughout, before some particular vibration comes into the picture

maybe the fields and the vibrations in them are different in character but the difference is not exactly this "pre-existence"
condition


Rovelli has an interesting comparison of Maxwell eqn with
Einstein eqn on page 34,35 of his draft book, showing parallels and historical development

I agree with you that too simple a comparison of light with gravity is erroneous, but I may have misunderstood the precise distinction you make between them

 

[marcus]

This post refers to this JPG picture:

http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March03/Lineweaver/Figures/figure1.jpg

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by thed
What may help in understanding spacetime is that it is 4D whereas our sense are only used to 3. When we refer to spacetime 'bending' it bends in 3D, it may be flat in 4D.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by ShadowKnight
My senses are certainly only used to 3D
Can anyone out there explain this analogy to me using a 2D / 3D example? I feel like I'm almost to an understanding but the light hasn't fully come on yet.

For starters, take the case where we just swap around what thed says (he may have unintentionally switched 3D and 4D):

[[When we refer to spacetime 'bending' it bends in 4D, it may be flat in 3D. ]]

This is the picture you get in the typical review article by a cosmologist these days (Michael Turner, Ned Wright, Charles Lineweaver, Plionis, Eric Linder, whoever).
If a reputable cosmologist writes a review of the present model he will say that the consensus is large-scale "spatial flatness" that is flat in 3D which probably means infinite in extent but all we can say from observations is 3D flatness

and he will say "expanding" which means 4D curvature

So then to respond to Shadowknight, how to picture this
consensus view (spatially flat expanding, therefore curved in 4D)

For starters look at a 2D space-time diagram with 1D space and one dimension of time and you see all the worldlines of individual galaxies are curving outwards as the distances between them increase.
the galaxies are sitting still in the space around them (in these simple pictures) but getting farther apart and so the geodesics they follow (straight lines in terms of spacetime geometry, or straightest possible anyway) are curved---when we make a flat picture of it.

You can find plenty of these 2D spacetime diagrams in Ned Wright's cosmology tutorial at the ucla site, or Lineweaver's tutorial at the caltech site.
Figure 1 on page 6 of Lineweaver is, I think, especially good
I would suggest downloading the whole paper

http://arxiv.org/astro-ph/0305179

But if you only want to look at figure 1 and browse, without printing, then try the caltech site.

Probably doing google with Lineweaver Inflation will get it
but I will edit in a link here just in case

Here is the caltech link to Lineweaver's article for online browsing

http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March03/Lineweaver/Lineweaver_contents.html

Here is Figure 1 from the caltech version of Lineweaver's article, which I posted at the top cause its a great picture of 4D curvature

http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March03/Lineweaver/Figures/figure1.jpg

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by meteor
I define substance like something that exists, in contraposition of a hypothetical pure vacuum. In a pure vacuum gravity waves cannot exist (there's nothing to wave). For example in LQG, the substance can be the same loops. In string field theory that substance can be the string fields (though I'm not sure in this case)

The problem with classic concept of a vacuum was not the lack of substance, but the fact it was separated and had independent existence from the other properties of the field. Even so, such a volume of pure vacuum would still be reducible to lines. Lines are not made anything, as they are just space, but from the same standpoint, string and loops are not made from anything either. The difference is, while length would be the only property we would ascribe to lines in classic Euclidean space, lines or strings have other fundamental properties. They cannot be sepereated, hence you cannot have "space" with any independent existence of the field, which is the composite of all the properties.

This is just philosophy. But it helps if you take a concept of the classic vacuum, and list the properties it has. Then compare it to the properties of something deemed to be a "substance".

 

[Tom D]

As I understand it from 'Cosmology' by Harrison, special relativity applies to C in local space whereas general relativity applies to gravitation and the cosmic expansion.
Gravitation: space itself ( not explaining what the fabric of space is ) is being sucked into a black hole.At the event horizon, the radial velocity of space = -C and a photon emitted radially away from the black hole travels in accordance to special relativity at +C along its local space which is itself traveling in the opposite direction.Compared to the local space it is in, a photon is moving at C(special relativity).
An observer at distance is in different local space.To him/her, the photon is motionless on the event horizon ( so he/she can't observe it )
A photon emitted into the black hole travels at velocity -C along space at velocity -C so the photon moves away from the distant observer at -2C but he/she can not ever observe it. To the photon, it still moves at -C in its own local space.
No velocity exceed +C or -C within local space.
The velocity of space increases without limit as it approaches the 'singularity' ( that's another story- in my opiion it is NOT infinitely dense, but the density increases without limit, which are different things, actually, if you think about it).
Expansion of the uiniverse:Space is expanding uniformally on cosmic ( inter-galactic-cluster scales ( not local galactic scales ) like a rubber sheet--or balloon surface( 2D instead of 3/4D ).Imagine small discs of paper spread evenly on the sheet or balloon surface and glued to it so they do not move as the sheet/surface expands.If a disc distance s from a random other disc is measured and the distance to the next disc in a straight line will be 2s ( evenly spread ) then the sheet is stretched uniformally at constant rate for a unit of time t until the first distance is 2s, recession velocity s/t.
In a straight line, the next disc away will be at distance 4s with recession velocity 2s/t. The further away any point is from another point, the faster they recede from one another without limit, other than the age and size of the universe.
Where ( relative to a particular point ) the recession velocity = C, is a circle on the sheet idea or a sphere in the real universe.This sphere is the photon horizon for that particular point just like Earth's horizon is a differnent part of Earth depending where you are looking from.
Compared to one another, didstant galaxies may be moving further apart faster than C, but special relativity is not violated since light still travels at C in its local space ( within galactic clusters ) while galaxies never approach C in their local space, just like the discs are glued to the sheet and are motionless locally and onlly have velocity relative to each other on large scales.
The photon horizon ( which is a different sphere for each point in the universe ) is estimated to be 20 billion light years radius, but if the universe is 13.7 billion years old, I don't know if the universe is yet expanded enoug to have the horizons.
The main idea, is that C is never exceeded within space, but space itself is not limited in speed at large scales.

 

[Vosh]

Originally posted by thed
One of the hardest things to accept in modern physics is that waves can propagate without a medium.

The idea first comes in with Maxwell's Equations. An EM wave is self propagating , even in a vacuum. Put another way, the speed of an EM wave is not related to the pressure of anything, just two constants, the electric permittivity and magnetic permeability of free space.

What may help in understanding spacetime is that it is 4D whereas our sense are only used to 3. When we refer to spacetime 'bending' it bends in 3D, it may be flat in 4D.

To appreciate this I like the analogy Kip Thorne uses in 'Black Holes and Worm Holes". We assume that light has constant velocity in vacuo, more precisely it is invariant between inertial frames, and follows the shortest distance between two points. We also know that gravity causes things to accelerate in it's presence. So what happens when light passes through a gravitational field?

The answer to the conundrum is that it changes direction, the speed is scalar so does not change, but change direction you change velocity and it accelerates. But that means light follows a curved path in the prescence of gravity.

What we are seeing is light following the shortest path in 4D, which to us is a curve in 3D. The path it follows is spacetime. It is purely a geometric construct.

Did that make sense?

I like this; it has a clear coherent ring; but I have to go look up some terms and I'm having trouble seeing the concept of acceleration being the result of changing direction. I've been trying to figure this out over in the relativity section in the "equivalency question" thread...

 

[pelastration]

Originally posted by Tom D
Imagine small discs of paper spread evenly on the sheet or balloon surface and glued to it so they do not move as the sheet/surface expands.

Tom D. Instead of gluing small disc of paper on that balloon just make local knots of the balloon material and see what happens. Check these photo's. http://www.mu6.com/show5.html

I attach one photo. Don't know if it will appear.

 

[Vosh]

Originally posted by thed
One of the hardest things to accept in modern physics is that waves can propagate without a medium.

The idea first comes in with Maxwell's Equations. An EM wave is self propagating , even in a vacuum. Put another way, the speed of an EM wave is not related to the pressure of anything, just two constants, the electric permittivity and magnetic permeability of free space.

What may help in understanding spacetime is that it is 4D whereas our sense are only used to 3. When we refer to spacetime 'bending' it bends in 3D, it may be flat in 4D.

To appreciate this I like the analogy Kip Thorne uses in 'Black Holes and Worm Holes". We assume that light has constant velocity in vacuo, more precisely it is invariant between inertial frames, and follows the shortest distance between two points. We also know that gravity causes things to accelerate in it's presence. So what happens when light passes through a gravitational field?

The answer to the conundrum is that it changes direction, the speed is scalar so does not change, but change direction you change velocity and it accelerates. But that means light follows a curved path in the prescence of gravity.

What we are seeing is light following the shortest path in 4D, which to us is a curve in 3D. The path it follows is spacetime. It is purely a geometric construct.

Did that make sense?

Did you mean spacetime bends in 4d rather than 3d? If not, I'm confused.

How does changing direction change velocity. I don't see, say, a dot on the edge of a spinning disk changing velocity...

 

[Adam]

I recall a news story a little while ago in which they said the average colour of the universe is beige. I suspect this means the fabric of space-time is actually caramel pudding.

 

[zankaon]

'fabric' of spacetime?

I've been reading a lot about gravity lately, trying to understand it as best I can. When I think of gravity, I find it easiest to imagine the rubber sheet analogy to explain the spacetime curvature. Gravity is supposed to be caused by the curvature of spacetime. So the thing that I have no insight on is the 'fabric' of spacetime. What is it? It's talked about like it's a physical object in many texts that I've read. "A tear in the fabric of spacetime." You need something to tear or put a hole in, right? A spinning black hole will spin spacetime near the event horizon - spin what? It's also the medium that gravitational waves travel through. This again requires (in my mind) some kind of physical object, ie. sound waves travel through air - air is the physical object.

Another puzzling thing I've seen several times is the idea that the spacetime fabric travels faster than c as the universe expands and has done so since the big bang. The fact that it has always been faster than c satisfies the theory that nothing can CROSS the light barrier, but if the spacetime fabric is some sort of physical object, wouldn't it have mass? How can something with mass go faster than c - that would require infinite energy, wouldn't it? Would a (hypothetical) observer who is outside of our spacetime see the universe and everything in it moving faster than c (relative to their stationary position outside of spacetime) with the 'flow' of the spacetime fabric?

I'd appreciate any insight any of you could provide me on this. Any links would be very helpful as well.

Might the following recent cosmology post relate in part to the above archived 'fabric' of spacetime post and discussion?
DO WE ALREADY HAVE EVIDENCE OF DARK ENERGY - OUR MANIFOLD?