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June 2009Something Into NothingNothing demonstrates the subtle interplay between zero, infinity and reality like the following from an article about time I read recently (I have omitted the names to protect the guilty):
"An infinite number of them can exist in the same location" = True. (Type 3 Infinity: any number) "the quanta could all exist piled together in a single dimensionless point" = False. A dimensionless point permits no quanta of any kind - it is, by definition, the absence of any quantity. It is not a location.
The Problem With PointsThis kind of fuzziness about zero and infinity is wide-spread in modern Physics. Unfortunately, Physics has a long-standing idolatry of point particles as being some sort of "ideal object" akin to the ancients' treatment of the planets as perfect spheres. Points encompass no area, no volume, no space and no time. They are mathematical abstractions that do not exist in the real Universe. A volume of 0 x 0 x 0 is mathematically equivalent to a point (also 0 x 0 x 0) or a square with an area of zero (0 x 0 x 0). In each case the value represented is the absence of anything: no area and no volume. Waves need "somewhere" to exist. Whether we are dealing with a 1-dimensional value or a 100-dimensional value, they can never be contained within a 0-dimensional point. The sole purpose for points is to locate objects: to specify the co-ordinates at which we will find the object. The actual object is never itself a point. It must have some attributes: size, duration, mass, etc. A dimensionless point can only ever describe the dimensionless object "nothing".
Regards, AJ Corcoran
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