If only matter exists, the space between objects is nothing at all, so by definition it should do nothing at all. Yet even a vacuum transmits light, gravity, magnetism, and charge, which isn’t doing nothing! From nothing, nothing comes, but space creates distance between objects, for if nothing separated objects in a vacuum, they would be touching! A space that transmits waves and separates objects can’t be nothing. It even has its own energy, so:
“… space, which has so much energy, is full rather than empty.” (Bohm, 1980), p242.
That space is something is illustrated by the Casimir effect, where uncharged plates close together in a vacuum register a force pushing them together (Cole, 2001). Quantum theory allows space to exert this pressure but a truly empty space couldn’t do this. As Martin Reece, Astronomer Royal and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, points out, 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 appears to us as nothing but it is actually something, so how can that be? The answer according to physics is field theory, that light travels by vibrating an electromagnetic field in space, as Maxwell’s equations describe. This field vibrates to cause light, but does so into a dimension outside our space that we can’t see. In effect, space hosts an invisible field that vibrates in a non-physical way to cause light. We expect physical effects to have physical causes, but field theory has a non-physical cause for a physical effect. It is accepted because the equations work, but how can what is not physical cause what is? Field theory’s answer is to attribute effects like the Casimir pressure to virtual particles that emerge from space near the plates but again, how can empty space create particles? Field theory essentially lets nothing cause something, which denies common sense.
In contrast, space as a quantum network surface can show matter or empty space, just as a screen can show an image or be blank. Empty space is a quantum network null result, light is a positive-negative ripple spreading, and matter is a constant positive or negative result. The following chapters give more detail, but basically quantum realism provides one cause for space, light, and matter, namely the quantum network.
This approach lets space have a distance property, so the earth doesn’t touch the moon because quantum points separate them. It also makes space the surface upon which light vibrates, but how does empty space have energy? If empty space is null processing, why isn’t the result all zeros?
The result of a positive-negative null process is only zero when the cycle ends, so for any region at any instant, some points will be zero but others won’t. It follows that the points of space will average zero over time but at any instant they won’t all be zero. Like static on a screen, space averages to blank but isn’t always so. Quantum theory also states that space can’t constantly have zero energy, and this quantum fluctuation is the energy of space.
If space is something not nothing, and if it transmits light waves, then 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).
Quantum theory now supports this by allowing a 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.
Newton saw space as a static tablecloth that presented objects like cutlery, but in quantum theory it is more like an ocean, where Wheeler’s “quantum foam” can arise, but if empty space is full not empty, what is it full of? Physical realism has no answer but according to quantum realism, it is full of quantum processing.
When one looks through a window, one might see the view but not the glass transmitting it. We only know the glass is there if it has imperfections, a frame around it, or if we can touch it. Now suppose that our window on reality has no imperfections so it can’t be seen, it is all around so there is no frame, and it accommodates matter, so we can’t touch it. Space is then like a perfect glass window that reveals reality without showing itself. It is perfectly clear, with no flaws or imperfections, so we can’t see it. It is perfectly boundless, with no sides or edges, so we can’t see around it. It is perfectly accommodating, of matter or rays, so we can’t touch it. We walk, talk, and act in space without knowing it, so we call it emptiness, but space isn’t empty, it is full.