What's the Fabric of space made out of?

True ... has it ever occurred to you that the one other common element in almost all those situations is you? "Stalled argument" and "buzsaw" have a very strong corellation. Hummm... Yup. Appears to you. A certain amunt of vagueness is inherent in the description in English rather than mathematics. The rest of the vagueness arises from another source. A clear view of our moon is pretty white, which means it has plenty of red in it. The reddish appearance is caused by subtracting other colors, not adding red. My stars and little fishes! All this time and you don't have the vaguest idea of what redshift is!Redshift is not a reddish appearance, nor is it a state of having more red wavelengths than others. Spectroscopy clearly shows that by shifted elemental absorption and emission lines. Redshift is the shifting of all wavelengths toward longer wavelengths and has nothing to with the color red; many very-high-redshift obects appear blueish or white or yellowish in visible light. Spectroscopy and redshift. The math is modeling it and, alas, it's sufficiently complex and counterintuitive that anything other than the math is going to introduce vagueness and potential for error. The model is the math. You up for it? Brushed up on multidemensional tensors recently? Familiar with Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetimes? You're comfortable with Schwarzschild metrics? Neither am I; and I can't understand the model completely.Sylas has done yeoman's service in laying out excellent explanations of complex subjects that can be understood by those with a moderate amount of background information and a willingness to learn and putting up with your lack of any background information and willingness to learn and your aggressive and insulting behavior. He deserves a medal. I wouold have blown you off long ago.

Perhaps Buz, you could fill me in on what you think space is made of?While you're at it can you describe what matter is made of. You know the desk under your computer, you and the air you breath. Just exactly what is it made of?

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1. I was reading about this on the web and what I understand from what I read about redshift relative to the cosmos is that the longest wavelengths of the spectrum are red. Since the longest are red and the longest tend to prevail in the observation of it, the color comes out to be red. If I have correct recollection, the color red would be a factor. I'll try to bring it back up and reread if I can find it.2. From moon and sun models, what appears to be redshift could conceivably be produced from other than the space expansion redshift, could it not?Correct me if I'm mistaken. In the mean time, you've motivated me to do some more reading up on spectroscopy. Thanks. Mmm, isn't contending that the math of it, in itself is a sufficient model tantamount to a creationist contending that the complexity of DNA is a model of intelligent design of DNA? I go as far as I can with what I can comprehend and believe I've made some, I say some progress, thus far without the above. We'll see how you fare with countering what I've got up so far and we'll go from there. Maybe we can both edify one another to a greater or lesser extent. OK?

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In Jehovah God's Universe; time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

As I've long contended, imo, space perse, itself, is not made of anything. It's the universe's static unbounded void of absolutely nothing but existing unbounded area in which things of the universe exist. From what I've read on this, the more science delves into the answer to your question, since the more powerful the microscopes and detection devices become, the more becomes discovered as to the complexity and finiteness of the makeup of matter.Relative to my definition of space, and my understanding of the origin of matter, my answer to you is that matter is made of it's immensly complex consistency and exists within the universe's boundless space. All matter existing has come forth from the omnipotent creator of it, and has eternally been managed as to it's form of existence by that omnipotent incomprehensibly intelligent creator.

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In Jehovah God's Universe; time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

Thanks for the space answer. Whatever it is or isn't made of it does have some particular properties.The matter answer doesn't seem to be finished. As we have delved down into it it seems to be made of a relatively simple set of basic building blocks. These are, at this level, described by the math in the same way space is and are just as real (or "unreal").If string theory is right then matter ends up being "made of" (not the right words but I'm not sure we have them) a few very simple entities. These are now, and may remain, described by the mathematics of their properties just as spacetime is.When that level is reached spacetime is made of "spacetimeonium" and matter is "strings". Though I wouldn't be surprised if it is all made of the same "stuff" whatever that would turn out to be.This "space" you describe that is not "made" of anything still has certain properties. They have been predicted from the math and then measured. The properties are such that this "nothing" can indeed streach and warp. This is measured.I'm guessing that at this point to say something is "made of" anything doesn't make sense anymore. We are outside of the usual understanding of the world we think we see and well outside the normal use of the English words.The world we see is not what the underlying reality is. It is less like it than a picture on film is a good representation of the chemicals that "really" make it up.

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the longest wavelengths of the spectrum are red. Since the longest are red and the longest tend to prevail in the observation of it, the color comes out to be red.

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Red has the longest wavelength of visible light, but beyond it there are radio waves, which also show a shift in wavelength towards the longer end of the spectrum. Using the known position of spectral lines (Fraunhofer lines are a great example from the visible part of the spectrum), we can tell how far a wave has shifted. As the shift in wavelength is the same across the spectrum, the most likely cause is either the expansion of space, or a Doppler effect. If intergalactic gasses could change wavelength significantly, they would have a different effect on radio waves than visible light (radio waves can travel through solid walls, the waves of visible light cannot).

The longest wavelengths of the teeny tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to which our eyes are sensitive are red. Here's a graphic of a lot of, not all of, the electromagnetic spectrum: Note how small the visible light area (below the "P" of "SPECTRUM" in the "Common name of wave" line) is.A very detailed electromagnetic spectrum poster is available as a graphic and a PDF from Electromagnetic Radiation Spectrum Poster. I'm not absolutely sure what you mean by "moon and sun models". If you are referring to the fact that the moon and sun appear reddish under certain circumstances, that's not a redshift. It is absolutely impossible for the phenomena that make the moon and sun appear reddish to be the cause of the cosmological redshift.Here's a high-resolution picture of the light our Sun emits in the part of the spectrum that we see (from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2000 August 15; if you click on the "above picture" link you can get higher-resolution versions). This should really one incredibly wide but not tall picture, but to make it fit they've cut in into strips and stacked them up on top of each other. Start at the top left and read left-to-right, going down to the left end of next line when you reach the end of the line, just like reading English. You can sort of see that the maximum brightness is in the yellow area; that's why the Sun appears yellow. But there's green and blue and red, too, just not so obvious. But what are all those black lines?Those are called Fraunhofer lines, after Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787-1826) who first discovered them. Here's one of his original drawings: With modern equipment we see lots more. The Sun is generating light at the frequencies where we see those black lines, but the light is being absorbed by various atoms and molecules and ions before it gets to us. Furthermore each atom/molecule/ion has a characteristic set of frequencies at which it absorbs light, and we can identify atoms and molecules and ions by their patterns of light absorption. (Helium was discovered in this manner, in the Sun, before it was discovered on Earth.)So, what happens when the Sun appears reddish when it's low in the sky? The atmosphere is absorbing blue and green components, so the same spectrum of the Sun taken late in the day might look like this: where the blue components are almost gone, the green components are cut way back, but the red components are still strong … so it looks red. But the Fraunhofer lines are still at the same wavelengths; the ones that were in the red are still in the red, the ones that were in the yellow are stil in the yellow, and so on. We can tell from the pattern of the lines.What would it look like if the Sun were moving away from us really fast, and its light was redshifted? Well, it would look something like this to us (I've cut off the blue end because it's really difficult to put it in): Now we see the red and yellow and green (and blue, if it hadn't fallen off the bottom of the picture) components at about the same brightness as the original; but the Fraunhofer lines are in different colors! We can tell because of the patterns of the lines. The lines that were in the yellow are now in the red, the lines that were in the green are now in the yellow, the lines that were in the blue are now in the green.So it's trivial to tell the difference between what makes the Sun look red and what the red shift of something moving away from us looks like. The distant objects in our Universe are red shifted by their motion, not by some of their light having been absorbed. {ABE: Some objects are red or blue shifted by their motion, more distant objects are red shifted by the expansion of space).By the way, there was a "tired light" theory, in which the red shift was caused by light getting "tired" after traveling long distances. That didn't work out either. No, not even comparable. Math is the language of science; much if not most of science is mathematical models. The math is something which can be manipulated, checked against experimental observations, and used to make predictions of future observations (not necesarily future events) (which observations might falsify the model). If you come up with a mathematical model of complexity of DNA pointing to intelligent design which could be manipulated, checked against experimental observations, and used to make predictions of future observations, and could be falsified, maybe you'd have something. Dembski's tried, and he's failed miserably. Wrong topic.{Updated links to pictures}This message has been edited by Admin, 03-06-2005 11:29 AMThis message has been edited by JonF, 03-07-2005 11:16 AM

Skip many many irrelevant red herrings. We aren't stalled. Nearly everybody involved, me included, has been making progress. Even buz has been been making some progress. In a nutshell, because space has curvature. This is an observation. Since space has measureable properties, it is wrong to say it is "just" an area.Sylas

good work Jon. I was going to refer buz to wikipedia, but your explanation is better than theirs (they never tie it down to examples of spectral shifts for the absorption bars - and assume a level of knowledge that is at least high school physics\science - in a way that could not be misinterpreted as buz has done)Redshift - WikipediaI remember doing spectral bar experiments in my high school physics (PSSC) class

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Buz statement: JonF post: What I was alluding to was whether the factors that make the sun and moon red when viewed through haze/et al could be an alternate possibility to what is interpreted as redshift since there are billions of particles, et al in the cosmos through which the light must pass.
This post is not intended as an attempt to refute your excellent post here on this subject or to refute your position supported by it. I need to do some homework before commenting on this post except to ask the above question. Is there a scientific name for the red moon/sun event?I see the difference in the spectrum for redshift and that of the sun event as per your charts. Isn't the redshift event suppose to be detectable only as applied to objects of great distances in the cosmos?

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In Jehovah God's Universe; time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

If there were the possibility of a model of space with absolutely nothing in it, how would the curvature of it be measured, detected or otherwise observed when there's absolutely nothing to be observed? My argument implicates that alleged curvature and expansion of space is a missinterpretation of stuff occupying space as being observed.

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In Jehovah God's Universe; time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

OK, that's what my post refutes.One thing that I did not mention is that we can oftehn see the effect of all that haze and stuff. Light picks up another set of Fraunhofer lines if it passes throuhg a dense-enough cloud; the Fraunhofer lines are red-shifted by the velocity of the cloud relative to us and the amount of the expansion of space between the cloud and us. Probably. I have no idea what it is. The process that causes it is called scattering. Redshift is defined as "the systematic increase in the wavelength of all light received from a celestial object". Redshift may be due to any of (or any combination of):

• The body moving away relative to us
• The light having to "climb out of" a gravitational field to get to us
• The expansion of space between us and the body

The third only applies to objects that are far enough away that the effect is fairly large and (I think -- I might be wrong) is larger than the effect of the second possibility. Note that if a body is moving towards us the effect is a "blue shift", which is the negative of a red shift and can cancel out a red shift or a portion thereof.The first and second possibilities have been measured within the Solar system (albeit the amounts are very small) and on many other scales.

Geometry. Separations. Time. We measure with rulers and clocks, but we are not measuring any particular thing, so much as the space they occupy. If you have a circle, and find that the circumference is less than 2 * pi * the radius, what are you measuring? The circle is just an abstraction; a locus in space along which we place rulers. The measurement is a measurement of curvature of space itself; there is no other object involved. Saying that you have to use something to make the measurements is missing the point. The curvature you measure does not depend on how you make the measurements.The notion that we are measuring aspects of things in space rather than the geometry of space itself does not work out in practice.One obvious example is time dilation. We can measure the differences in clocks at different heights in a gravitational field. This is not property of the clock; but of the space that the clocks occupy; because it makes no difference what clock you use. We also measure the speed of light to be constant, regardless of local motions of the observer, and regardless of what rulers or clocks you use to measure it.The constancy of light speed gives a nice way to derive special relativity; which is not about geometry of space. However, it is a starting point for how you can define separations when the normal definitions change according to observers. Many folks have a pretty good grasp of special relativity; it is actually fairly easy.The problem comes with gravity. We can use special relativity to manage accelerations, and twin paradox, and barn pole paradox, and so on, all within one consistent framework of special relativity. But gravity upsets the matter. It turns out that the only way we have for dealing with it is a generalization called general relativity; which involves the geometry of space.There are some good introductions available, and I've cited a few of them. I might even try writing some of my own; but the ones already out there are better. Try, for example Foundations, by Greg Egan. Egan is, like me, an amateur; but a very good one. He is also a writer by profession (science fiction).Cheers -- SylasThis message has been edited by Sylas, 03-06-2005 20:32 AM

Wow, does that bring back memeories. We must be similar ages.