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Failed to connect to MySQL: (1203) User howardkn already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connectionsPath: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!i2pn.org!i2pn2.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: hitlong@yahoo.com (gharnagel) Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity Subject: Spacetime Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2024 12:20:20 +0000 Organization: novaBBS Message-ID: <46633b77bddb3b8bcf79567060ac4687@www.novabbs.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: i2pn2.org; logging-data="1131742"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@i2pn2.org"; posting-account="p+/k+WRPC4XqxRx3JUZcWF5fRnK/u/hzv6aL21GRPZM"; User-Agent: Rocksolid Light X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 4.0.0 X-Rslight-Posting-User: 47dad9ee83da8658a9a980eb24d2d25075d9b155 X-Rslight-Site: $2y$10$YlOVOshS7Tp0pUdbUN4R..TzYUao2.RL9Qxu4gFoQVCPDkliBPJNa Bytes: 2743 Lines: 41 “spacetime is likely to be an approximate description of something quite different.” – Steven Carlip It's interesting how most physicists describe spacetime as an actual "fabric." It's really a mental model that may not have any existence at all. The equations of relativity describe what actually happens quite well, but the "fabric" of spacetime may be an invention. I think the things that are real are THINGS. I find the basic concept of string theory very compelling: that is, elementary particles are not points as the standard model posits. In the real world there are no such things as dimensionless points. It's a very good assumption because the string theory particles are way smaller than we can detect, but presuming elementary particles have extension in space is surely correct, even though strings may not be. Some of the things that string theory leads to, however, are very interesting, such as M-theory and branes. The ekpyrotic theory is one that sets forth a reason why the big bang happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekpyrotic_universe although I disagree with a cyclic universe as presented. Anyway, that's not necessarily a given in the theory. The universe may still be cyclic without a contraction (in agreement with the present information that the expansion is accelerating). The energy for a bang comes from the bashing of an adjacent brane into ours, as proposed in the original theory and, if it happened once, why couldn't it happen again? And again, and again, and again? This would shoot down the idea that spacetime (and space) only extends as far as the last bang (the one nearest and dearest to our hearts) has had time to expand. So then the question arises: what would be the effects of a previous bang on us? If we applied GR to that model, might it not explain some mysteries we are dealing with?