2. I understand particles such as nutrinos can penetrate the entire planet and are attached to electrons, et al. I don't see them as a property of space, but something existing in space. Like gravity, waves of the sea and mysterious particles are related to things in the universe rather than properties of space. Remove all water from space and you have no waves in it, yet space remains in existence. By the same token, remove what nutrino particles attach themselves to in space and you have no nutrinos yet space remains in existence. How'm I doing?
I'll give it a shot, although cavediver is better qualified to answer than I am.
First, neutrinos aren't "attached" to electrons. They're just a similar type of particle. The biggest difference is that electrons have an electromagnetic charge, whereas neutrinos do not. This is why neutrinos so rarely interact with other matter, passing right through the Earth most of the time.
Your idea of space sort of sounds like the "luminiferous ether" that was popular at the end of the 19th century. It was known at the time that light behaved like a wave; common sense held that for waves to exist there must be a medium through which they propagate. Ocean waves propagate through water, after all, and sound waves propagate through air. Therefore a medium that permeates space was postulated, through which light propagates, and was coined the "luminiferous ether".
Attempts to measure this ether failed, however, the most famous being the Michelson-Morley experiment, which showed that light moves at the same speed in all directions, even while the Earth itself was rotating on its axis and revolving around the Sun. Therefore something was flawed with the notion of a fixed ether, since a rotating and revolving Earth could hardly be stationary relative to the ether.
The Theory of Relativity pretty much did away with the idea of an ether. In fact, it did away with the notion of movement through space entirely. Instead, movement is only defined by a change of position relative to something else. Saying that a single object is "moving through space" is meaningless; movement only has meaning in reference to other objects.
This message has been edited by Posit, 03-31-2006 01:14 AM