Natural Science Forum / Physics / Relativity / May 2005

Old Man insulted me, so he's definitely not smart.

As for the universe, have you noticed that the universe and the null
(empty) set are "opposites" (everything vs nothing, roughly speaking).
In fact, in set theory, if S is the universe and N is the null set and
prime ( ' ) denotes "complement of" (outside of roughly, or "part of
the universe that is outside of"), then we have S' = N and N' = S.  The
difficulty physically in interpreting this comes in concerning N.  What
if N were physically represented by some "ultimate generalized-modified
vacuum" that actually contains no particles whether real or virtual?
Would this change the universe S from its usual interpretation as
"everything that exists" to "everything both potential (that could
exist) and actual"?   Right now, most people regard N as represented by
no physical scenario.  But every other set in physics is supposed to be
represented.  Does that make N a "point anomaly" (see my concurrent
thread on Nonlocality)?

Osher Doctorow

No.  Supposed "events" outside of maromitches
light cone aren't causal to him (past light cone), nor
is he causal to them (future light cone).  Origins of
no consequence are out of space and time.

Old Man's current wishes are outside of his light
cone. It is Old Man's current wish that he hadn't
replied to macromitch yesterday.

Yes.  Harder questions please.