Vacuum

[Enigma]

According to the TV programm I watched nothing is not nothing. It is something created from nothing that continually becomes nothing. Yeah, I don't understand it either. :frown:

The guy says that is you were to hang two identical metal bars from a perfectly level rod about an inch apart then cover it all with an empty bell jar and create a total vacuum inside it the bars will slowly and inexorably move closer together until they touch. He maintians that the "nothing" inside the jar exerts a force that causes this without any external magnetic or electric fields. I beg to differ. I would assume that if the bars are ferrous then the earths magnetic field will cause this or if non-ferrous gravity will do so. Possibly a combination of both. Still somebody more competent than me may think different. What is your opinion?

[ardus]

Clearly whoever wrote that program doesn't understand what nothing means. In order for there to be a true vaccum there cannot be ANY outside influences. Plus anyone who says something like perfectly level can't be trusted to set up a good experiment because the a human being making a measurement will always have some degree of error in their measurment, at least according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, hope I spelled that right. Anyway, sounds to me like psuedo science masquerading as real science, which there seems to be a lot of in our society these days.

[Wilem]

Yer

A vacuum is a space in which matter is continuously being created, and then immediately subsequently eliminated (by its own creation).

Fits in with current theories.

Comparable to transfer of heat:
If a hot object is placed in cold surroundings, it gives out more heat than it is letting in, and cools down.
If a cold object is placed in hot surroundings, vice versa.
If an object is at the same temp as its surroundings, it is equilibrium, so, rather than not exchanging energy either way, its actually giving out exactly as much energy as it is letting in.

This school of thinking makes MUCH more sense when you think on a molecular level.





Good god I hate physics.