Pondering Motion, and Our Position in Space

[stebo0728]

So, I've been pondering the subject of motion lately, specifically as to how it affects our position in space. Its amazing when you realize, that no matter how still you stand, you're still moving through absolute space at phenomenal speeds. Our motion through absolute space is a vector composed of probably thousands of sub vectors:

* The Vector describing your motion with respect to earth
* The Vector describing the motion of earth, with respect to its rotation, and revolution
* The Vector describing the motion of the solar system, spiraling in the galactic tail, around the black hole thats allegedly in the center of the galaxy
* Probably dozens, hundreds or more sub vectors I've never imagined

All these combine to describe our position, and motion through absolute space. If you imagine yourself, and the absolute spot in space that you occupy at any given moment, just thing, its very likely that you will NEVER occupy that exact spot in absolute space EVER AGAIN. Is it even possible to ever come to a complete stop in absolute space? If so, how would you know? How would you reference a spot to know you haven't moved.

I swear I'm not suffering from ganja right now (not that I ever "suffer" from it anyway LOL)

[szh]

Um, one thing is that there is no such thing as "absolute space" - at least, not as we know it today.

All motion is relative to something else.

If you look at universe expansion, our "horizon" is where space is receding at light speeds - I forget the exact size, but this has been quantified somewhere. Brian Greene's book "The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos" (here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Hidden-Realit ... 382&sr=8-1) discusses this in some detail. I am about 1/3 of the way through this book ... fun read.

Z

[stebo0728]

Sure there is "absolute space". The problem is, how do you perceive it? You can't, you have to form some sort of reference, which leads to relative. Absolute space would be no different. If we had a way to identify and reference it, then we could perform calculations relative to it. Imagine a blank painting canvas, the canvas is "absolute space". Until you paint an object onto it, you just have the canvas. The difference is, you can reference the canvas, you can paint in the top left corner. Once you paint an object, you begin, usually, painting the rest in reference to the object, forgetting the canvas in general, except for minding you're constraints. Space has no constraints. Or does it? The point Im trying to make is, even though we are moving on the earth, through the solar system, in our galaxy, expanding out through the universe, each motion causes us to move in the mother grid of space, passing through finite points along the way. We simply have no way to reference that space, to know our motion relative to that space, or to know that if we were to stop, whether we are moving still relative to that space.

[szh]

Ummm ... my point is that the concept of absolute space requires the presence of absolute boundaries for the universe. That does not exist (as far as we know anyway), so here is no reference point that is a (0,0) of sorts ... other than whatever we choose to refer to as that, for the purposes of any given calculation/discussion/measurement.

Makes all motion "relative" - the cornerstone of Einstein's work.

As I read your post, I think we are saying the same thing ... it is just your use of the term "absolute" that I am concerned with.

By the way, M theory requires 11 dimensions - Planck sized in most of them. So the act of "motion" means travelling through 11 dimensions continuously ... mind-bending stuff.

Z

[bigbadberry3]

Absolute space!?!?! What is this nonsense?!!?!

[alms24sebring]

^ Ive always been curious of the other 7 since I only know the 4, x, y, z, time.

I think its impossible to grid where we are in the Universe. Like Z said, motion is defined by reference to another object. I think all we can do is grid our position separately from each POV, that being on Earth, Earth in solar system ----> position in the known Universe. I think I see what you getting at and I think it is impossible to know our position in space when we dont even know where the edges are, even after the outer most walls of matter and energy of the known Universe. Go back to your canvas. If the canvas stretched on forever, how could you grid it if you dont even know how big the canvas is? Now imagine that in 3 dimensions... But, if you have a splotch and make another splotch how ever far away, you can make the original one the 0 or starting point so you can measure position and motion to everything else around it. The position in the Universe is only in reference to everything else, it just depends on the scale you need to be looking at.

A bigger question is that how do we know that the entire Universe itself isnt floating like a cloud in the wind through black empty space? We could be 3 Universes away from where we were a year ago ???