h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dear Sexysperts,

I wondered fairly recently, and was reminded by seeing your request for simpleminded Science questions that I'm not sure what Space is made of. My question is what is space made of? and could I capture it and put it in a bottle? I would also be fairly interested in what colour it is but I'm more interested in what it is made of.

Thanks in advance,

Mr SAMC

Hi Mr. SAMC!

I'm reasonably sure that space is nothing- a vacuum, or at least an expanse filled with such a cold thin gas that it can be assumed to be a vacuum. Someone want to provide a more complete explanation?

It's really quite simple: space is the final frontier!

Normal matter composes upto 5-10% of space, it is the atoms which make up the visible stuff, planets, stars, living matter etc.

Dark matter is the stuff which scientists are convinced is out there but cannot be seen, which is around 25%. The rest is the mysterious dark energy, which fills the gaps at 70%. However recent research doubts the existance of so much dark energy and so dark matter is making a come back.

My present understanding is that there is no obvious answer to this, although I am just a hobbyist now, so someone may come along and tell us otherwise!

What are you on about Dealer? This isn't Star Trek...can you explain space further?

Alex.

Space isn't really "made of" anything exactly. The three fundamentals, Space, Time and Mass, are measurable only in terms of each other, not absolutely.

Space is the form of inner sense (Kant), the geometry of the propogation of cause and effect.

Noggin

I would have thought that, by its very name, space consists of nothing.

B

That should have course have read "Space is the form of *outer* sense". *Time* is the form of inner sense.

It's not so much that space is made of nothing or something, it's just the wrong question. A bit like asking what "energy" is made of. Space is a set of relations between things, rather than being "a thing", and does not exist apart from the things it is a relationship between.

Noggin

"Space: Contains everything and nothing but there is a lot of nothing and not much everything" Terry Pratchett.
Seriously though space is what things are contained in it isn't really a substance in its own right.

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Space is a vacuum, and we have no idea what 96% of the Universe is made of.

I guess if you were to suck all the air out of your bottle, you'd have a vacuum..

although fundamentally, it is possible that 'space' contains a vast sea of quantum energy with particle pairs constantly popping into existence and then cancelling each other out in a burst of energy and returning.

So nothing at the macro scale, but all sorts of weirdness at the quantum level.

although thisinfo is a bit old and zero point energy and random spontaneous particle pair creation and annihilation may no longer be a hypothesis thought worthy of consideration. The maths allows for it though.

I think you're right Ictoan, I don't think that theories been outmoded.

Anyhoo, I think Noggin nailed it. The question had me stumped.

This is one of those real serious tough ones that even the most deeply theoretical physicists can't agree on I think.

If space is nothing but what everything elses is in then what is there beyond the ever advancing frontier of light and neutrinos heading away from the current universe 'edge' at light speed?

Or is it all curved back in on itself?

Damned if I know

Logically, if all information/cause and effect originates within the universe (which is true by definition, I think), and the shape of space is defined by the paths of propagation of these, then space must be curved in on itself, but I think it's difficult to explain verbally. It has to be visualised.

Noggin

If you were in outer space with an empty bottle made from e.g. glass and you sealed it off i.e. screwed a top on then took the bottle back in to a pressurised environment such as a space ship with you it would implode because there would be no pressure on the inside of the bottle and comparatively enormous pressure on the outside.

So you couldn't put space in a bottle and have it anywhere other than in space itself!

Dan

If you "filled" your bottle with vacuum in space and brought it back to earth, there'd only be one atmospheric pressure acting on the outside of it, pressing inwards. Bottles are easily able to withstand that sort of pressure. So the bottle would not implode.

Indeed. Bottles with fizzy drinks in contain ~4atm of pressure, a difference of 3atm. So a 1atm difference would be easy.

B

I bow to your superior knowledge about bottles.

I always thought that space was what was inside the bottle [to use the metaphor], regardless of the bottle being "empty" or not... but that thought's kinda confusing because if that is in fact space, what is the bottle that holds the universe? What's it made of? If the universe keeps on expanding, does that mean the container is infinitely huge that the universe has yet to completely diffused into the container? Or is the container expanding as well?

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I take it you're not talking about us there, Orcus