: I have always heard that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. This theory may be relevant to my question. First let me set the hypothetical situation. If I had a ball or a box, or any three-dimensional objet that at some point in time started getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller, would this object it in some point reduce itself to nothing? Gone? Nada? Or would it forever continue to reduce in size for infinity? I was under the assumption that the object would continue to reduce itself for infinity. If my theory is correct I want to apply that same question to space or distance. If two trains were headed for a head on collision, would the space between the two trains reduce itself to nothing? Or would the space forever continue to shrink and reduce itself? Obviously not because there are numerous incidents of train collisions. What I want to know is how do we define the space or distance between the two trains the instance before contact? If we could measure the minimum distance between the two trains before they collided what would that be? And if that "minimum distance" exist, then there must be empty space between the two trains. And if there is empty space between the two trains, then obviously we can reduce or shrink that space by half of that so called "minimum distance". Do we forever keep reducing this space between the two trains……..Or at what point do they make contact. Please help me. : Thanks in advance

I'm no physisist but... how can MATTER shrink? ATOMs are made of electrons, neutrons, etc... which are made up of smaller bits of stuff (quarks maybe)... which in turn are made up of smaller bits of stuff... but I've never heard of matter actually SHRINKING. As for matter not being created or destroyed... BINGO. Like I said, I'm no physisist, but even I know that matter can only CHANGE (become other things). As for them trains... you're talking about SPACE... which can be infinitly small (the distance between halves of a quark) or infinitly large (the distance between one end of the universe and the other).

• RE: Re: I have always heard that matter can neither be created nor destroyed - Kerry Millen - September 29, 2000 - 10:56 UTC