If only matter exists, the space between objects should be nothing at all. Nothing should do nothing, but we know that the vacuum transmits 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 predicts this pressure but a truly empty space shouldn’t do this. Martin Reece, Astronomer Royal and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at Cambridge University, concludes that space isn’t 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, so how can that be? The current reply is field theory, that light travels by vibrating a field within space in a direction outside space, as Maxwell’s equations describe. In effect, space hosts an invisible field that vibrates in an invisible direction to cause light. This is accepted because the equations work, but how can a physical field vibrate outside space? Field theory also lets virtual particles from this field push the Casimir plates apart, but what creates those particles? Field theory essentially allows empty space to have physical effects, as it does, but how can nothing host a field that generates particles?
The alternative now proposed is that the quantum network shows something or nothing 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 gives 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 the null 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? The answer is that null processing isn’t constantly null. A positive-negative null process is only zero when the cycle ends, so at any moment, some points in a region will be zero but others won’t. Points will average zero over time but for an asynchronous network, as proposed here, they aren’t all zero at once. Empty space isn’t always empty, just as a blank TV screen can show static. Quantum theory doesn’t allow space be constantly null, so:
“… space, which has so much energy, is full rather than empty.” (Bohm, 1980), p242.
That space is something not nothing, and that it transmits light waves, implies a non-physical ether. Einstein also concluded 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).
Strangely enough, modern field theory now supports the idea of a non-physical 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 field theory sees it as an ocean that spits quantum foam and particles that jump like fish. But if empty space is full, what is it full of? Physical realism can’t say, but quantum realism lets it be full of quantum processing.
When one looks out a window, one sees the view not the glass transmitting it. We know a glass is there if it is imperfect, if there is a frame around it, or if it can be touched. Now suppose that our window on 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. It is like a perfect glass that reveals reality but doesn’t show itself. It is perfectly clear, with no flaws or imperfections, so it can’t be seen. It is boundless, without sides or edges, so it can’t be seen around. And it accommodates matter, so it can’t be touched. We walk, talk, and act within what we can’t register, so we call it empty space, but actually what we call empty is full.