[Capuchin]

Mass is a form of energy in this universe, you don't need parallel universes to describe our current world. This universe is so huge and complex and fascinating, why do you need to propose ideas involving other universes we have no evidence of?

The only thing that a parallel universe may have contributed to is seeding the big bang, but that's highly theoretical.

Many of the things you can think up are present in this universe :)

[magprob]

So what is the answer to the original post? Isn't everything that underlies what appears to be matter, energy? Could it possibly be sound energy even if we can't hear it? Is x-ray or Gamma ray a sound energy?

[Capuchin]

Sound energy is a pressure wave. It doesn't really make sense for there to be sound energy beyond the atomic level, what is the medium the pressure is propagating through?

[magprob]

That is a great question. What is the media that x-rays and gamma rays or even gravity are propagating through?

[Capuchin]

This isn't my point. Sound waves are a wave of pressure in a medium, this is what we understand by "sound".

EM waves can be thought of as particles, which don't need a medium to travel through. Gravitational waves move through space-time. I suppose you could say that that is their medium.

Sound waves require a medium, because they are fluctuations in pressure that travel by transferring energy through a medium. I don't see how that can happen on the subatomic level - it doesn't make much sense for matter to be sound energy.

Of course there's string theory, that posits that each type of particle is a string vibrating in a certain mode - each mode being a different particle. This is probably the closest you would get. But the matter would be more meaningfully thought of as being composed of the string - the mode just characterises the matter into a particle. String theory has not given us any testable results though.

[magprob]

I've heard that when one particle is manipulated, it affects other particles and that the person doing the observing affects the particles simply by his observation-does that make sense? So if that is true, I assume that every particle is somehow connected. By the string theory or the media in which it resides? I see what you mean by sound waves needing a media to react within to manipulate that media thereby causing a sound. What I don't understand is how, on the subatomic level, seemingly the same thing is happening. Action/reaction. Is that manipulation local or does it create a simultanious chain reaction throughout the entire universe? Could the stuff they call Dark Matter actually be the media or what we call string theory? Another time space antireality, on the negative or reverse side of our observable universe? I hope this makes sense. I know what I want to ask but putting this stuff into words is hard for some one with no scientific background!

[Capuchin]

Are you talking about quantum entanglement?

Or the uncertainty principle?

String theory has not produced any measurable evidence, so I'm not going to go into how string theory would explain any of this, because it doesn't at the present time.

Not every particle is linked at all. Only entangled particles, and they are not linked in a way that can facilitate information transfer faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

[xpecialfx]

Hi guys, I like the discourse I've just read over, it brings this thought to mind, which I hope I can word it correctly. I'll try using an analogy from the movie men in black. Remember at the end of the movie, the camera began pull away from the earth, then beyond our universe, then beyond our galaxy, then eventually to a marble in some aliens hand. Now I do not believe that were all in a marble, but my point is this, lets look at this scenario in reverse. Lets say from the aliens point of view, looking in the atomic structure of the marble. Our conventional tools of today are limited as to how deep we can look inward,obviously. But just as outer space is infinite, so too is, umm, shall we say inner space. So as the alien looking with its electron micro scope views the marbles inner galaxies as atoms, when in all actuality they are stars and planets made up of atoms, therefore the possibility of a medium could exists for sound energy. Who's to say that there is no sub-atomic make up for atoms. I think I worded that correctly. Basically big can infinitely get bigger, and small can infinitely get smaller. So inside electrons protons, and neutrons there could be even smaller particles,( unseen ),but a medium that when manipulated by sound energy, form electrons, protons, and neutrons. I don't know, what do you think? Do I got something here or do I need to be committed?

[Capuchin]

Nope, protons and neutrons (and the other hadrons) are made up of particles we call quarks and gluons.

As far as we can tell, electrons (and the other leptons) are point like and fundamental. We also believe that quarks and gluons are also point-like and fundamental. There is no evidence that these even have a size, let alone have anything in them. All the measurements that we have suggest that these particles act exactly like we would expect a particle with no dimensions to act. (that doesn't mean that we're right, but they're definitely smaller than any size we can currently measure).

As for space, I'm afraid it isn't infinite.

[xpecialfx]

Actually I do believe that space is limited, but what would you say is outside outer space?

[Capuchin]

There isn't anything outside the universe.

[xpecialfx]

Really? How can you be so sure!

[xpecialfx]

What happened to Scotty? Hmmm!

[Capuchin]

You mean star trek... they travelled through the universe... Not beyond it.

[Capuchin]

What do you think is outside the universe? :)