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By pure, I mean no matter, no light, no spacetime. Absolutely nothing. Assuming that space-time does not get bent due to this, what would be the consequences? My best guess would be that all photons of all wavelengths would be reflected due to them not being able to travel into nothing and thus they just "bounce off" and that matter would just be stopped by the electron shells getting pushed by themselves 'cause electromagnetism would also "bounce off" and thus "push the electron back more as it got closer". The "pure nothing" would be completely unchanging due to nothing in the universe (well apart from maybe black holes) being able to change its state.

Also, would having a lack of spacetime in a certain area cause spacetime to become distorted accordingly? Let me clarify something though, this nothing is simply a lack of spacetime in a specific part of the universe that isn't moving according to a specific reference frame and never accelerates/changes state because it is nothing. It is nothing that is "localised in spacetime by replacing a small section of it".

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  • $\begingroup$ Nothing? I think that is the answer you are looking for. Jokes aside, I think this is a little broad. Why would space time around a path of nothingness be affected by the nothingness? A better question is, why is your nothing not filled by something? Is this the edge of our universe we are talking about? If it is, and the nothing is unchanging as you have stated, then how does our universe continue to expand? $\endgroup$
    – Jax
    Commented Sep 30, 2015 at 15:08
  • $\begingroup$ It would just be what rocks dream about... $\endgroup$
    – Scott Downey
    Commented Sep 30, 2015 at 15:11
  • $\begingroup$ I suppose it'd be like this. $\endgroup$
    – Seth
    Commented Sep 30, 2015 at 15:17
  • $\begingroup$ Hopefully my edit will have cleared up what I mean by "nothing" . ^_^ $\endgroup$
    – god of llamas
    Commented Sep 30, 2015 at 15:55
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    $\begingroup$ You might be interested in Philosophy, it's off-topic here because its not a question of how the "nothing" would impact your world. Note that, even if it were about a fictional world that you are writing about, this question would probably still be closed as "too broad" because the answer would be "it could behave however, you, the writer, wanted it too for your story" $\endgroup$
    – DoubleDouble
    Commented Sep 30, 2015 at 21:39

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The answer to this very much depends on your definition of nothing. As an example: do you consider the inside of a black hole's event horizon to be 'nothing'? It certainly isn't anything we can observe, though it lacks some of the properties of your described 'nothing' as it is still a region of space-time.

If your nothing includes none of the physical laws that we know (as the lack of space time itself would indicate) then how it interacts is frankly up to you. It could appear the same in almost every way to a black hole, except it's event horizon is reflective as you describe. It could be that it's an area of warped space time such that approaching it becomes impossible (like a black hole but backwards). It could be a monolithic block of blackness that inspires lower life forms to sentience and plays Thus Spake Zarathustra on a loop.

Essentially what I'm saying here is that 'nothing' can manifest however you want, as pure nothing necessitates that there are no more rules.

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Your question appears logically flawed. Space-time is the fabric of our universe and for something to exist inside of it, it needs dimensions. How big is your "nothing"? By giving your "nothing" dimensions you are turning it into "something"... You can quickly see how this becomes a headache.

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That "nothing" is all around us, within us and without us. It affects nothing, it does nothing and it reacts nothing to anything. A perfect nothing cannot be observed. You can think of it as dark matter without gravitational property. It would be the essence of everything, yet be associated with nothing.

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