Is Space All That Important?

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In our universe every activity is believed to take place in a background - spacetime, and the activities considered "events". These events are fundamentally motion(s), different kinds of motion giving rise to different dynamical phenomena. As a matter of fact, when you look at the equations of physics used to model the evolution of virtually all phenomena that can be modelled mathematically, you would notice that they are expressed either in terms of space or time or both. In this article however, our focus would mainly be on space.

So, back to the original question - see the title. Well, for us it is important since has helped us scientifically and technologically, but because it's important to us doesn't mean it's actually important. In fact there's a philosophical debate as to it's existence, is it real and independent of us (matter) or is it merely a concept ?

If we had evolved to have no eyes/be blind, would we acknowledge the existence of space?

These are very interesting philosophical questions and to be honest they are also very difficult to answer. However, what does science (physics) have to say about it's existence?

From one perspective it appears to be real given that it can be measured but...... this is in the classical realm - our everyday world. The other perspective is when you get to the quantum world where the existence of space becomes questionable, let me explain.

One of the properties of space in our classical world is that it's a continuum - like a continuous line, on the line there are infinitely many points and an object moving on the line must pass all points. In the quantum world and according to our best theories, that isn't always the case, in an atom, electrons are arranged in what is called "orbitals", the orbitals are distributed in space, moving from one orbital to another orbital sometimes requires an electron moving from one space to another but when the electron is transitioning to another space/orbital it doesn't cross the space in between, it is like it disappeared from it's initial space and appeared in the new one - this is usually called a "quantum jump". Observing this, one may be forced to think space in the quantum world is not a continuum but discrete/quantized and as a matter of fact, the approach that some physicists have been using to develop a theory of quantum gravity is making spacetime quantized.

During "quantum entanglement" almost the same problem arises. When two particles are entangled, whatever happens to one also happens to the other and it happens instantaneously, if we are to assume information travelled between them, then the speed theoretically is greater than that of light which is itself a problem, it breaks causality - a rule of classical motion. As a matter of fact, this particular phenomenon provoked Einstein and he made a very funny statement that goes like, and I quote "spooky action at a distance", it was from here he began to doubt the completeness of quantum mechanics.

Most predictions and phenomena of the quantum world including the ones discussed earlier can elegantly be gotten from the "Schrödinger equation", especially from it's solutions and given the right boundary conditions.

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You see that symbol that looks somewhat like the head of Poseidon's fork (Ѱ), it's called the "wave function" and it represents the state of a quantum particle. The equation however describes the evolution of the state but there are many states (whose evolution is still described by Schrödinger's equation). Particles change from one state to another state but quantum mechanics and Schrödinger's equation cannot predict with certainty which state the particle would be on next and this is where probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics comes into play. Interestingly, space or the position of a particle happens to also be a state and according to the most popular interpretation of quantum mechanics - the Copenhagen interpretation, when measurement is made, the position of the particle collapses from multiple positions to a single position. One interesting question, the other positions, where did they go ?

If you try to use the many worlds interpretation where the other positions become part of other universes (alternate), it raises it's own question, just before the measurement, where actually was the observer or the particle ?

In fact from another perspective, it looks like measurement itself creates the reality of the particle or could that really be the case?

What if space isn't all that fundamental and therefore also not that important ?

In fact, it's actually possible to create a theory of the quantum world that doesn't require space and even time. What if there was a background more fundamental than space ?

In the case of the quantum jump, it could be that the electron did actually move in a background that is a continuum, this background is probably more fundamental than space, we just haven't been able to identify it and it may also require reconstructing our theories and mathematical models. It could be that in this background classical causality doesn't apply (in the case of entanglement).

Space and possibly time could be emergent properties or illusions due to the complex dynamics of this unknown background, as a matter of fact, there are theories of quantum gravity that suggests this. Trying to look at this unknown background from our mundane perspective may be what is making the quantum world look annoyingly weird/counterintuitive. Whether we like it or not, we still have a very long way to go when it comes to unravelling fundamental workings of our universe but this is not to say that what we have presented in this article is actually correct, just like we have been doing in previous posts, we simply are exploring other possibilities. I guess time itself however real or fake is the ultimate judge. For now let's continue to work with what we know of. I guess this is where we bid ourselves goodbye and until we meet again next time or maybe.......never. 🤭
Have a thoughtful day.

For Further Reading

Space

Philosophy of space and time

Is Space Real, or Just Something We Misunderstand?

Quantum mechanics

Quantum gravity

Schrödinger equation

Thank you all once again for stopping by to read my jargons and also thank you @stemng, @lemouth and the @Steemstem team for your valuable supports.

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