The Universe contains entities in relative motion with respect to each other. But suppose the Universe contained only one entity. What would be its motion?
Would this one object-universe be definable? Why? Why not?
Dennis
De`isMazur
Dear Dennis,
Your response does not answer the question as posed but tell me what do you think: Is a "single object universe" definable or no?
If a truly single-object universe existed, there would not be anything to compare it to.
Dennis
Dennis Mazur
Dear Dennis,
Thank you for your reply and I think you alluded to the answer. The only reference frame that can be defined in a one-object Universe is that which attaches to the object itself with respect to which the velocity of the object would be zero.
This is a very interesting question. In addition to the helpful comments given so far, there is a bit more to add.
A single-object universe is a space containing a single chunk of matter. This is an example of what is termed a physical zero-skeleton. The idea of a zero-skeleton comes from topology. See page 5 in
https://www.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/AT/AT.pdf
In other words, from a topological perspective, a 0-skeleton is a vertex. In the context of spacetime, a physical 0-skeleton is an example of a physical vertex (a particle with mass). Since the universe introduced in the thread does not exclude light, the velocity of a 0-skeleton would be a fraction of the speed of light.
There are always diverse forces governing the particles forming the object. Can we assume that because of the vacuum in the surrounding, an explosion can occur to make the object in small pieces and thus form a small universe of "micro-planets"!
Dear Dwight,
Nice contributions by the followers, I would like to add:
There is one (compact) particle in the universe.
Asking about velocity assumes the existence of a conscious observer which is a contradiction.
Because of the particle and the observer are two objects and classical physics determines the velocity.
If the observer and the object are one, then velocity always = 0, in other words, that universe is NULL without dimensions.
Best regards
The observer, of course, would be stationed on the object, but it really is a rather nonsense question that was inspired by a a comment on a different issue although the question of what meaning can be attached to an empty universe has been posed. Velocity could be defined in a two-object Universe if the two objects were in relative motion with respect to each other. Each object could carry a light source, observer and its own reference frame and each could measure a velocity of the other with respect its own (stationary) reference frame. But for a single object there is no external reference frame relative to which to measure a velocity. Velocity, thus, is not definable in a single-objet Universe.
There IS only one object or phenomenon in the universe, light. As the fastest speed to which all else must therefore be relative, light travels the shortest path, an ellipse. Where light c along the ellipse's longitudinal major axis enters the ellipse's transverse minor axis (at h, Big Bang), light c converts or slows parabolically to c2 and, in slowing, produces self-similarly (fractal) all forms of slower energy like orthogonal electromagnetism, sound, chemical, etc., including all forms of matter, which is slowed or stored energy. Light does this at the rate or distribution of its conically elliptical curvature (angular momentum), relatively-linear longitudinally along its major axis and then acceleratory along its transverse minor axis, before at its apex reaching respective entropies and black holes.
This route light takes happens also to correspond very nicely with the Ulam spiral primes distribution rate. Although primes may be infinite, prime gaps never exceed 6 (31 and 37), the other prime gaps in this repeated pattern being 1 (linearity c between 2 and 3), 2 (3 and 5, 5 and 7 or twin primes) and 4 (7 and 11; nonlinearity c-squared or acceleration=speedXspeed, speed-squared), thereby resulting in albeit an infinite flat universe (uni=one) that is bounded or one, rugbyball-shaped, likely to a dimensionless point (cf. Grigory Perelman's Poincaré conjecture solution).
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