What Is The Material Structure of Spacetime?

Please let it be bacon.

originally posted by: elysiumfire
ErosA433:

...the information in the above quote is incorrect and somewhat misleading.

It is and it isn't. I speculated on two aspects: a) due to detection, neutrino must have mass - which they do; and b) that the neutrino slowed down to a speed where weak interaction can take place?

Without interaction there is no detection. Neutrinos do not interact electromagnetically, and are unaffected by magnetic fields. As you have correctly stated, it is the weak nuclear force that oversees neutrino interaction, but the weak nuclear force only acts across extremely small distances, so for neutrino interaction to take place, it has to encounter a force that acts on it other than the weak nuclear, and that other force is gravity acting on the mass of the particle, which clearly shows that gravity is indeed a force of its own. It is in this context my meaning was meant. Apologies to all.

It really does not require any gravitational input or coupling in order to interact in the standard model. And it isn't gravity acting upon the mass of the particle that gives it its weak coupling. For an interaction to take place the neutrino simply needs to encounter another particle, the interaction to be energetically possible and the location to be very close.

It is not relevant that the neutrino has mass or not for its general interaction strength.


Lets look at a like for like example, to show you why it is wrong.

Electrons and muons.

cosmic rays that hit the upper atmosphere generate showers of particles. If we do a simulation (based on real data), if a 10GeV electron is produced in the upper atmosphere we pose the following questions

Will the particle make it to the surface? The original particle will likely barely make it to the surface,

Will there be a shower of particles generated as the particle interacts with the atmosphere? Yes, but it will be mostly contained to the atmosphere and barely make it to the surface.

The electron has charge -1 mass 0.511 MeV

Now the Muon and the same questions

Will it make it to the surface? Yes, it will not only make it to the surface but pass through and into the ground a fair distance.

Will there be a shower of particles generated as the particle interacts with the atmosphere? No, at least not as extensively as the electron, it will loose a little energy via scattering but little else.

The muon has charge -1 mass 105 MeV

But having a heavier mass means stronger interaction right? right? no, not at all. The interaction strength is more related to the things like energy conservation, interactions being energetically allowed, spin allowed and quantum number conservation. The muon does not interact because it's coupling to the electrons, protons and neutrons is weaker, than the coupling of electrons to electrons, protons and neutrons.

Gravity plays no role, at least not at a level we have been able to observe.

If the neutrino had no mass, we would still be able to detect it, it is coupled weakly to electrons, protons and neutrons. While it does not undergo electromagnetic interactions, having no charge, it can still do things like scatter electrons, undergo inverse beta decay and transmutation, if conditions are met. all of which are not dependant upon the neutron having mass.

originally posted by: elysiumfire
It is the same with time. Time is nothing more than the measurement of our perception of duration. That is all it is. Time is like space, it is nothing. When you put nothing with nothing you still have nothing, and because nothing has no properties of any kind, you cannot interact with it. There is no force of any kind that can interact and affect nothing.

My understanding is that physical existence requires not only a spacial reference (the where) but also, and just as important, a temporal reference (the when). Without time, how can anything exist? If for instance we agree to meet on the corner of Main St and Elm St, what good is that without telling each other when to be there?

a reply to: PhotonEffect

Yes. Time is a dimension along which objects have position and extension, just as in space. Their location, as Einstein showed, is subject to relativistic effects. There is no such thing as absolute location in either space or time.

I don't want to speculate(on the material of space), but to me it seems possible that some area's of this type of research
is clandestine, in that it is limited by the PTB, much like how Tesla's research is much classified.
It is obvious to me that these areas of investigation pose a threat. Maybe to energy. After all
Tesla claimed and demonstrated that he could get power from the aether, or empty space, maybe he
was tapping into a frequency emitted by the earth, or maybe it is more akin to dark energy.

Warning crazy thought: We have great microscopes, we just need to see EVEN smaller until we break the barrier of that which we perceive as nothing.

Good luck in your inquiry. Science has never told us what "stuff" anything is made of, and it never will because that is not what it does. It tells us "how" stuff works and "how" it is made-up, but not what anything is actually made of.

Take yourself for instance.. Science will tell you that you are made up of cells, which are made up of, ultimately, atoms, which are made up, ultimately, of fundamental particles. What are they made of? They don't know yet, but they will get back to you. In the meantime, don't listen to anyone who says "our" answers are not the end all of all. After all, we answer "how" and that means you shouldn't ask "what" or "why" - only morons ask those questions!

"We" are certain we will know "what" by asking "how" cause that makes perfect sense, and we have demonstrated it again and again. Well... maybe not "really", but it is a good enough show to make you believe. After all, "how" things are made-up does look quite a bit like "what", if you aren't really paying attention.

a reply to: elysiumfire

(The 'nothing) outside the universe is called space. Here is how to define that void.

Space is an attibute of the universe. It doesn't exist beyond the universe. Nothing exists 'beyond the universe'. Space is not 'nothing'. There is no beyond. And you and I don't get to 'define that void', unless you and I are physicists or cosmologists. Not because anyone will stop us, but because we lack the specialized knowledge required to do so.

I infer that the universe is not expanding, but that newly-created matter is pushing already created matter ever deeper into space...that is the expansion.

This is not at all the case. You are simply mapping the design characteristics of the human sensorium on to the physical world. We have known for well over a hundred years that doing so gives us a false and misleading picture of reality. Indeed, it has been an article of faith (of philosophers, mystics and magicians) for far longer than it has been a tenet of science.

Of course, this raises profound questions, especially about the forces creating new matter.

No 'new matter' is being added to the universe.

Suppose they never was just one singular 'Big Bang', but that Big Bangs are occurring all the time in other regions of the universe, but so far away that we can only detect their occurrence by the ubiquitous presence of a cosmic background radiation?

If such were the case, the CMB would show it. But it does not.

a reply to: ErosA433

Infact, the first neutrino interactions where observed without any requirement in theory for them to have mass, and in many respects, them being massless was always an assumption or placeholder.

I remember this from my boyhood — specifically, Arthur C. Clarke writing, in, I think, Profiles of the Future that a neutrino has no mass and no charge, but that 'just to make things more confusing, it does have spin'.

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: ErosA433

Infact, the first neutrino interactions where observed without any requirement in theory for them to have mass, and in many respects, them being massless was always an assumption or placeholder.

I remember this from my boyhood — specifically, Arthur C. Clarke writing, in, I think, Profiles of the Future that a neutrino has no mass and no charge, but that 'just to make things more confusing, it does have spin'.

Rather like photons. Electromagnetic fields don't have mass or charge but do transmit linear and angular momentum. Like neutrinos (though now they are believed to have a tiny mass).