<story><title>The physics of infinity</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-018-0238-1.epdf?shared_access_token=nhIyZJldj4QzWZs7LvZIttRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PMOaEWTfe0Iq_Ol3Eo9bd6Lh9xyPK-ya44kxWDxYi4IQo2Zqj-Ymd6yZVANNbW9FXmT1HwoVMnEtM00qpXT48gLDqpQXX3mvS3gRH22aRhLs-Cf_4dd6NkVcLZZP3rPbg%3D</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mannykannot</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t get the dual argument about zero, for which the impossibility of a completely empty region of spacetime is given as an example. That may be so, but a region empty of countable things like atoms seems physically conceivable. I am writing from a room containing zero elephants.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>okket</author><text>Rules of the macroscopic world do not apply to the subatomic (or even molecular) world. There are no two identical elephants in the world. On the other hand, you will have a hard time to tell two electrons or even two molecules of the same configuration apart from another.&lt;p&gt;A total empty region, void of any atoms etc., still contains &amp;#x27;quantum noise&amp;#x27; and thus virtual particles. The world, the universe as we know it so far has become inconceivable without this observation, known as the uncertainty principle.&lt;p&gt;I find the argument quite convincing.</text></comment>
<story><title>The physics of infinity</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-018-0238-1.epdf?shared_access_token=nhIyZJldj4QzWZs7LvZIttRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PMOaEWTfe0Iq_Ol3Eo9bd6Lh9xyPK-ya44kxWDxYi4IQo2Zqj-Ymd6yZVANNbW9FXmT1HwoVMnEtM00qpXT48gLDqpQXX3mvS3gRH22aRhLs-Cf_4dd6NkVcLZZP3rPbg%3D</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mannykannot</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t get the dual argument about zero, for which the impossibility of a completely empty region of spacetime is given as an example. That may be so, but a region empty of countable things like atoms seems physically conceivable. I am writing from a room containing zero elephants.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nabla9</author><text>&amp;gt; region empty of countable things like atoms seems physically conceivable&lt;p&gt;As far as I know this is not physically conceivable, if physically conceivable means physical laws as we understand them.&lt;p&gt;Quantum vacuum state, or zero-point field is not completely void empty.</text></comment>