What is ‘nothing’ and how can there be nothing? Surely even ‘nothing’ is something?

Question: What is 'nothing' and how can there be nothing? Surely even 'nothing' is something?
- Keywords:
  how science works,
  philosophy,
  topical
Asked by to Alan, Deepak, Francesca, Lilly, Nick on 17 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
- Francesca Day answered on 17 Mar 2014:
  
  That’s quite a philosophical question – in my opinion, there is no “right answer” to this! Quantum mechanics does tell us that what we think of as a vacuum or empty space isn’t really empty at all. It’s full of particles that pop into existence for a fraction of a second and then disappear again!
- Deepak Kar answered on 17 Mar 2014:
  
  I would say sometimes we use common English terms not in the literal sense. For example, when we talk about spin of an elementary particle like electron, it is not that electron is furiously rotating along its axis, but its just a way to express an abstract mathematical property. Similarly, nothing does not mean its a vacuum, it is just something which cant exist as per current theories.
- Alan Fitzsimmons answered on 17 Mar 2014:
  
  That is very philosophical – I remember asking that at school!
  
  The existence of “nothing” was originally considered to be impossible, until we understood better that everything that is material is made of small bits of matter we call particles. We also see that light exists as a from of energy travelling from place to place.
  
  So it became possible to imagine that a region of space could exists where there were no particles, and no light travelling through it. Then that region would really contain nothing!
  
  The strange thing is, our modern theories of physics now predict that there should be energy existing at every point in space. In the last 14 years astronomers have also discovered a type of energy that appears to exist at all points in the Universe. We don’t know yet if these two types of energy are the same thing, but right now it looks like we indeed can’t have “nothing” anywhere in our Universe – there’s always something there!
  
  Hopefully the next generation of scientists will solve some of these mysteries.
- Nick Wright answered on 21 Mar 2014:
  
  Good question! And quite an important question too! It depends what you mean by ‘nothing’. If you mean really nothing at all, then nothing is nothing and can’t be something. But if by nothing you mean, for example, empty space, then that is at least a bit of space, even if its empty and doesn’t have something in it.

Question: What is 'nothing' and how can there be nothing? Surely even 'nothing' is something?

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