If only matter objects exist, the space between them should be nothing at all, so it should do nothing, but we know that a vacuum can transmit light, gravity, magnetism, and charge, and that isn’t nothing. It is said that from nothing, nothing comes, but from our space comes the distance between objects, for if nothing separated objects in empty space they would be touching! A space that transmits waves and separates objects can’t be nothing.
The Casimir effect illustrates this, as uncharged plates close together in a vacuum register a force pushing them together (Cole, 2001). Quantum theory expects space to exert this pressure but a truly empty space can’t do this. Martin Reece, Astronomer Royal and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at Cambridge University, concludes that space can’t be just the absence of matter.
“We know that the universe is very empty. The average density of space is about one atom in every ten cubic metres – far more rarefied than any vacuum we can achieve on Earth. But even if you take all the matter away, space has a kind of elasticity which allows gravitational waves – ripples in space itself – to propagate through it. Moreover, we’ve learned that there is an exotic kind of energy in empty space itself.” (Martin Reece).
Space looks like nothing but is actually something, but how can that be? The current reply is field theory, that light travels by vibrating a field within space in a direction outside space, just as Maxwell’s equations describe. In effect, space hosts an invisible field that vibrates in an invisible direction to cause light. It is accepted because the equations work, but how can a physical field vibrate outside space? Field theory adds that virtual particles from this field push the Casimir plates apart, but how can a field create particles? Field theory essentially lets empty space cause physical effects, as it does.
The alternative now proposed is that the quantum network shows matter or emptiness as a screen shows an image or blankness. Empty space is then a screen null value, light is positive-negative values spreading, and matter is a constant positive or negative value. The following chapters give more detail, but basically this model provides a single cause for space, light, and matter, namely the quantum network. It also lets space create distance, so the earth doesn’t touch the moon because points of space separate them.
Why then does empty space have energy? If empty space is null processing, why isn’t the result all zeros? A positive-negative null process is only zero when the cycle ends, so for any region at any moment, some points will be zero but others won’t. Points will average zero over time but won’t be all zero at once for an asynchronous network. Empty space, like static on a TV screen, isn’t always empty. Quantum theory doesn’t let space be constantly null:
“… space, which has so much energy, is full rather than empty.” (Bohm, 1980), p242.
If space is something not nothing, and if it transmits light waves, this implies a non-physical ether. Einstein concluded the same long ago, that some sort of ether had to exist for relativity to work:
“…there is a weighty argument to be adduced in favour of the ether hypothesis.” (Einstein, 1920).
Field theory now supports the idea of a non-physical quantum ether:
“The ether, the mythical substance that nineteenth-century scientists believed filled the void, is a reality, according to quantum field theory” (Watson, 2004), p370.
For Newton, space was a static tablecloth that presented objects like cutlery, but according to field theory, it is more like an ocean whose waves spit quantum foam and from which particles jump like fish. But if empty space is full not empty, what is it full of? Physical realism can’t say, but quantum realism says it is full of quantum processing.
When one looks through a window, one sees the view not the glass transmitting it. We know a glass is there if it is imperfect, there is a frame around it, or if it can be touched. Now suppose that the window on our reality has no imperfections, so it can’t be seen, is all around us, so it has no frame, and accommodates matter, so it can’t be touched. Around us is then a perfect glass, that reveals reality but doesn’t show itself. It is perfectly clear, with no flaws or imperfections, so we can’t see it. It is boundless, with no sides or edges, so we can’t see around it. And it accommodates matter or rays, so we can’t touch it. We walk, talk, and act in space without registering it, so we call it empty, but actually it is full.