Thread: Theories on what holds the universe together?

It's been long thought that space must contain some hidden substance in order to allow energy to transmit over it, they use to call it the "ether". Now one has to ask, is there in fact something in space that we just can't see, is the universe based on some building block that we have no way of detecting?

I would love to hear some theories on what people think this might be, or if you believe there is nothing at all, in which case I would love to understand how energy travels on nothingness.

I just started thinking about this, and will come up with some ideas.

http://www.cnrs.fr/cw/en/pres/compre...reGalaxies.htm

I don't think anything is holing the Universe together as such; it is expanding as I type.

I would love to hear some theories on what people think this might be, or if you believe there is nothing at all, in which case I would love to understand how energy travels on nothingness.

Most energy is in the form of photons.
Is it hard to understand how a particle-like quanta can fly through empty space?

It's also interesting to think about light propogating through empty space as Electromagnetic waves.

I don't have a complete grasp on this...
My understanding of the dumbed-down literature I've read goes something like this:
Imagine that at some point in space, an electric field grows and collapses. It so happens that a changing eletric field causes a changing magnetic filed. This changing magnetic field will, in turn, cause a changing electric field... and so on and so forth.

This explanation doesn't sit right with me... for instance:
Where is the magnetic field generated in relation to the electric field?
Doesn't a change in a field propogate outward on its own?
If I move a magnet, I have no problem imagining the change in the field taking time to propogate outward at some speed... but does an electric field need to be involved?
Do Maxwell's equations
Maxwell's equations

This is the correct model you have described. Magnetism and electricity have a relation ship comparable to say temperature and pressure. When an electric charge is put into motion a magnetic force is exhibited perpenicular to the movement and vice versa. Such that the wave like properties of a photon can be visualised as actually two intertwining waves, travelling along the same path but at right angles, one a magnetic component and the other electric. It is important to realise that this only exists at a particular point along its wave movement at any time, it is not a continuous stretched out wave. This point is the partical location of the wave, the photon.

One can not exist without the other, except in a stationary (static) charge which does require a medium in the form of charged particles. These charged particles explain the way that such a wave is initiated; Our model describes electrons as moving to higher energy states when they are excited, when the negatively charged particles move down again this translation of electric charge initiates a magnetic field outwards from the electron thus the photon is created and the reverse happens if an electron were absorbing this energy.

An example of the elctromagnetic relationship in action is a solid state magnet. Electrons as we know orbit their respective neucleus, as they turn in one direction lines of magnetism are set up through the axis of the orbit, so that the atom is dipolar, magnetically speaking. In the normal order of things, which turns out to be extremely random considering the vast quantities of atoms making up any substance, these tiny forces cancel out. Under some circumstances however, with few materials the poles can be forced to align, so that a meterial has an net polar effect.

The main thing to remember though, as i first pointed out, is that we have to stop thinking of electric and magnetic interactions as seperable. First acknoledge that they are different ways of exhibiting the same force, the elctromagnetic force. Then its nature becomes more clear.

Have read AdmiralFloyds response leaving me with question: Then electromagnetics frequency emission is relative to the third derivitive of signal (rate of change) or am I off a bit??? Three dimensions, third derivaive? coincidence or not? Perhaps intigration is in order, but I begin to get lost when using Calc. 3 three, dim. analysis.

Gravity is a cosmology. Gravity is a continuum whose curvature
can close the universe. In other words it curves back on itself.

Everything is contained within this closed continuum.

Gravity is what holds the universe together!! as one!

[quote="(In)Sanity"]It's been long thought that space must contain some hidden substance in order to allow energy to transmit over it, they use to call it the "ether". Now one has to ask, is there in fact something in space that we just can't see, is the universe based on some building block that we have no way of detecting?

If you're saying that you find the concept of empty space - a "nothing" between all the "somethings" - baffling, then join the club! I'm just as baffled as you are. But then, for me the same applies to time and consciousness. If there's an ET out there who can explain all this to me, I doubt very much that my little human brain could grasp it. It's my guess, though, that no matter how high the intelligence, the ultimate answers and the complete comprehension will remain elusive.

Originally Posted by Nick

Gravity is what holds the universe together!! as one!

Um... there is no gravity. The illusion of this all attracting force comes from the two aspects of magnetism: attraction and repulsion. Planets are complete magnets. This has been known for thousands of years. Newton also knew that he couldn't explain everything in the universe with gravity, like the synchronous spinning of planets, the almost circular orbits, why planets stay on their orbits and the harmony of galaxies

Originally Posted by Tjalian

Originally Posted by Nick

Gravity is what holds the universe together!! as one!

Um... there is no gravity. The illusion of this all attracting force comes from the two aspects of magnetism: attraction and repulsion. Planets are complete magnets. This has been known for thousands of years. Newton also knew that he couldn't explain everything in the universe with gravity, like the synchronous spinning of planets, the almost circular orbits, why planets stay on their orbits and the harmony of galaxies

There's no magnetosphere on Saturn so it along with many other planets are not magnetic.

Originally Posted by cosmictraveler

There's no magnetosphere on Saturn so it along with many other planets are not magnetic.

Don't take my word on it, read what real scientists have discovered. Just do some reading.

Planets move and rotate only because they are complete magnets. They are affected by each others magnetic fields and this synchronous rotation produces gravity: North, south, north, south, etc.

If everything wasn't magnetic, the galaxy wouldn't rotate. There are only one kind of particles: two-pole ones.

Even if you throw an apple to space, it turns out to be magnetic. But since it's so small, it has to be far away from earth's magnetic (or "gravitational") field, otherwise earth reverses its polarities and draws it to itself.

gravity obviously holds the universe together. and anyways, the universe is not just the bodies inside it. even if the bodies flew away without anything to hold it together, the universe would still be together.

i'd put my money on spacetime.