Issue 39: Don't Bother Me, I'm Thinking
By Medulla Vesuvius

A Blank Space in Space

Scientists have recently discovered a “hole” in space approximately one billion light-years wide. Unlike a black hole, this is literally a lack of substance. While the physics of this are mind-boggling enough for a non-astrophysicist such as myself, the grammar of this has been bothering me this week as well. Here’s why:

We have this word—“space.” A lot rides on the context in which we are using it. When we say the word we could be talking about distance, as in a metaphorical distance like Dave Matthews sings about in “The Space Between,” or we could be talking about a physical depiction of distance, such as the “space” between two parked cars. Or we could be talking about Outer Space-the final frontier, all of that stuff “out there,” beyond our earth’s atmosphere-the vacuum which contains the moon and other planets like yer anus and satellites and stars and asteroids. Remember that kid on the commercial who had a report due on space? That kid was screwed beyond an extent where any mere set of encyclopedias could help him.

Space is the ultimate mind-blower. (Rascal Stallion should probably stop reading this right now.)

I’ve always thought space was a lot of darkness broken up by a random star or planet every now and then. Watching Star Trek has helped me form a view of space that is essentially a bunch of nothing interrupted every now and then by somethings. All of that black stuff interrupted by tiny white points of light behind the Death Star or the moon of Endor? Was that black stuff actually “stuff” or was it black “nothing?” If it was nothing how could it have color and occupy…space? I thought that black stuff WAS space, not occupying it. How does “nothing” span a distance? Surely distance can only be spanned by something.

Ok, fine. That black stuff is “something.” Through the world’s most trusted astrophysics reference, Wikipedia, I came to find out that space is not a perfect vacuum of nothing. It’s a highly speculative mixture of “dark matter” and “dark energy.” Well, that answers a lot! That’s not too far removed from the old joke of explaining how something works by saying, “Well, there’s this little man…” Plus, the new discovery specifically said that this hole was devoid of even “dark matter.”

These questions are not new. The recording of the debate about the nature of space goes as far back as ancient Greece and dudes like Parmenides and Aristotle talking about the void.

For me, the mind merely comes to a standstill on some matters.

One more question that makes Rascal Stallion shudder:

If the universe is indeed expanding, what is occupying the space, (and time), into which it is about to expand? What was out there zillions of miles before the space got there?

I need to go watch some TV.