If space is infinite...?

Question

If space (not including planets, stars, etc) is infinite then how can you have an infinite amount of emptyness and nothingness? If it is finite then how can you have only a fixed amount of nothing?

Answer 1

it is infinite. our brains are wired to understand only finite things, therefore infinity/space/time is beyond our understanding.

Answer 2

Many people ask this question and I guess nobody really knows. However, you can do some thought experiements on the subject. First off, empty space is not "nothing" - there is the potential for virtual particles to appear in empty space through what is termed "quantum jitters." On the subatomic scale, empty space is no longer smooth, but filled with potential energies that, if you were to try to graph those energy potentials, it would look like a very strange geometric world with bends, whorls and eddies in spacetime. So even if you have nothing, there exists the potential for something. See, for example, Hawking Radiation - Stephen Hawking explained why black holes can radiate some energy - because a virtual particle (a positron, say) can come into existence inside the black hole's event horizon, and its anti-partner (an electron) can wink into existence outside the event horizon. Usually virtual particles annihilate each other within a gazillionth of a second, but in some cases, like the one I've described, a virtual particle is promoted to a real particle because it was not annihilated by its antimatter partner.

So empty space is not empty. Does it stretch on forever? For that you have to consider Einstein's picture of the universe as being geometric. If the universe is large enough, even though is appears endless, space may be curved. Like the surface of a beach ball, you can travel forever on it but ultimately you will get back to the same place. However, in this case, it is 3 dimensional space (not counting the time dimension) that would the the *surface* of the beach ball. If this is difficult to picture, you are not alone, even scientists and astrophysicists have a hard time grappling with this concept. But the universe is in all likelihood much, much stranger than we can ever even imagine.

The thing about infinity is that it has some logical problems associated with it. The best way I can describe infinity is to never say never.

Answer 3

Space is not infinite. How large it is - nobody knows since it is continously expanding. Some scientist theorize it might be as large as 50 billion ly. The point is, it has a finite border though we will never see it. Think about the universe of an expanding baloon or bubble. Wherever you start to leave from, aftern having moving across the whole surface of the universe, you will arrive at your point of departure.

Answer 4

Space is finite, and can be modeled as a sphere of radius 13.6 billion light years. (But it does not have boundaries.) Also, space is not entirely empty, so it is not just nothingness -- not that it would matter if there were nothing in a large region. There is gas, dust, and stars.

Answer 5

Because space exists at the points of nothingness. Outside the universe space does not exist, so there can be no matter or even a lack of matter there. It's difficult to express because the language isn't tailored to this sort of discussion.

Answer 6

Space is a finite entity.
Even without any matter,space is not a nonentity.
Nothing existed before the universe emerged and nothing will exist when it goes out of existence.
But in the meantime space exists and because of a quantum effect matter and us.

Answer 7

space is very infinite and whats funny that everything in the universe is relative to something smaller, for example: a atom to a solar system or a galaxy. kinda varies the way you look at things!

Answer 8

Who said space was infinite?

Einstein theorized that space had a definite size
due to the gravitational bubble. It is true that that
size is increasing as we get away from the big
bang, but it isn't "infinite".

Answer 9

No, the end of space is discovered by scientits. By 20,000 million years thevoyager1 or 2 will reach the end of the space. I forgot what the end is called.

Answer 10

The word you are looking for is void.. yes void is infinite. however if there is space it is not .. Space is vast but it contains things.. such as planets metors and whatnot.. but void is nothingness.