Today let me touch upon a simple yet complex topic of nothing. It is quite a commonly used word which we use regularly mostly as a synonym of empty. We use sentences like – the box has nothing inside – the box is empty, and we mean the same thing. But the word nothing has so many things attached to it.
We are so much surrounded by matter that it is difficult to grasp the concept of nothing. An empty glass or cup may look as having nothing inside it but it has air in it and a cubic centimeter of air has 3 followed by 19 zeros of molecules that are 30 quintillion molecules. But what about vacuum? Well the most vacuum we have been able to create at surface level is having 100 molecules in a cubic centimeter.
Scientifically as we go higher up in the atmosphere we know that the air gets thin which means the air pressure goes on reducing and we are proceeding towards 'more' nothing. But there is a limit humans can go without any back up oxygen supply. That limit is called the ‘Armstrong limit’ (and it has nothing to do with Neil Armstrong). It is the limit where the boiling point of water is same as the body temperature which is 37 degree centigrade (and not 100 degree centigrade which is the boiling point of water at sea level). This limit is about 60 thousand feet from earth and this height the blood in the body will start to boil. As we go to the space it becomes 10 particles in a cubic centimeter and when we go to outer space that is beyond the solar system it becomes 1 molecule per cubic centimeter. Going even further if we reach the inter-galactic region it can be as nothing as 1 or 2 particles per one cubic meter. Quantum mechanics says there cannot be absolute nothing. Even if there are no particles but electromagnetic fields and gravitational fields which have no matter still will be present in that space.
Physicists are not on the same page about nothing. Some say that lack of matter is nothing, some say if laws of Physics can be applied then it cannot be said nothing. Some said if it is beyond matter, the laws of physics as well as beyond space-time also then it can be said as nothing. At present we consider this stage to be before the big bang as time- space -matter and the laws of physics started only after the big bang. At present our idea of nothing is limited to the fact that at the time of big bang something came out of nothing, but again can something really come out of nothing?
Spiritually also nothing or nothingness is treated as the culmination of all knowledge and thereafter nothing can be known or nothing is there to be known. It is the height of spiritual enlightenment. All forms of meditation is an attempt the stop all thought process that is to create a void in the mind. This way we can reach the supremely conscious state which is akin to nothing where the mind is so still that it merges with the nothing. When someone is able to reach that stage then only he is said to be spiritually enlightened and if you ask that person who am I and what is this world- he will answer it is nothing and that it is all ‘Maya’ ( creation of our mind and senses). And that nothing state is supposed to be the god.
Same way sometimes we feel an emptiness in life, mostly when someone near and dear dies or goes away to some other place, or even when in the pinnacle of career we sometimes feel an emptiness as if something is missing even when we have everything- a loving family and everything money can buy. It is difficult to describe that state of mind but it does happen. This emptiness has nothing to do with science or spirituality and this feeling passes way mostly with time as we again get engrossed in our routine life.
For generations the topic of nothingness has deluded philosophers and later scientists and still it is a matter of debate. We may never reach a consensus as to what is nothing or even if we came to realize what is nothing then what would we learn out of it- nothing or everything.
Thank you Telesfor sir.