think tank forum

What exactly is "space"?

Is it emptiness, or is it something else?

Could anything exist without space?

Could anything be able to expand without space?

Is space possible to be created?

How is the Universe able to expand?

space simply is.

"space" meaning outer space? outer space is like virtually a vacuum or something but there's minimal hydrogen atoms hanging around everywhere, IIRC.

I remember I saw this book in the library a while back called The Athereal Ether or something like that and it's about the history of the idea of this ether that encompasses all space or something. sorry I'm not saying anything very definitive, but I'm just working off of what I remember :).

er, that should be The Ethereal Ether.

Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space ) has a nice definition of ``space'':

``Space is the boundless extent within which matter is physically extended and objects and events have positions relative to one another''

How is the Universe able to expand?

It doesn't.
Consider an explosion, pieces of derby start dense, and are slung outwards, it's the same with the universe, it started dense, and everything was slung outwards.

but what is the universe expanding into?, I think was his question.

I'm not sure what his question was, and I'm not sure if he know it himself.

yes, what are the boundaries of existence... and if boundaries exist... what are they... can they be surpassed... is the infinite boundlessness of possibility really a bubble... if it is a bubble... a bubble within what?

worse than all of that is attempting to contemplate a reality... of infinite possibilities...

the human mind... should logically hang on these numbers as processing them in any logical fashion proves incredibly difficult even in structured calculation.

so the questions remain... what is beyond the next horizon... and will the next horizon be the last.

exploration... it is the quintessential heart of curiosity... and a reason for our success as a species.