The universe actually is nothing but space. The fields that all matter are created from can be broken down to zero actual size that's why it is said that a singularity (like the point of infinite density contained in a black hole) can actually contain the entire universe (immediately preceding the big bang).
Whether space is empty or it is an aether, is the whole debate. Modern science says it is an aether. All your great mathematicians, including Einstein, treated space as an aether. If space was truly empty, there would be no matter to wrinkle, there would be no "space time continuum" and all the laws of relativity would be just that: relativity, IOW perspective, the matter itself would not wrinkle or stretch, and there would be no way to cheat time.
so what is there - in space - that makes this big argument? Star light. I should give the flip side of the argument. The electrical universe says that space is filled with magnetic/electric forces, not matter, not mass, just electromagnetic forces. So the idea that space is empty (empty of mass) is the most modern theory. The old theory holds that space is an aether, meaning there is something to it, it is a body of matter, so it reacts as a body; hence, a ray of light enters the aether and it creates a wave of light in the body of space, in the aether. capice? That's what Einstein believed. That's how he perceived light travelled. Today we teach it is a reversing magnetic field that will travel through an empty space, which we call a vacuum.
If star light is both a particle and a wave, then space is an aether, filled with mass, and no longer a vacuum. A vacuum means there is no mass, if there is the tiniest mass there, it is no longer a vacuum, and space is not empty, in fact the word "space' is just a reference to the volume, it is a word like "heat' it is a type of measurement; space refers to the volume that is out there. "Outer space" is just that space out beyond our atmosphere. We have come to think of space as empty, as a vacuum, the electrical universe is all the most modern physics, it is what mankind's most recent knowledge tells us, when you think of a photon as a particle of light, that is so 100 years ago, that is the old theory of space, that is the aether universe.
I don't believe in the big bang, that was the most ridiculous theory ever and it has been disproven by the direction and speed of galaxy travel relative to each other. (without relativity, there is no way to gauge space travel - I believe in relativity, I believe in gravity, even though that is a throwback to Einstein, I don't believe in the aether, per se, but if you are purely looking at wave physics, all that math was developed in the aether, and there is no difference, the electromagnetic wave has the same characteristics) But you should realize, the big bang begins with space as empty, and then fills it with light. The big bang is more about the nature of the universe than it is an actual starting point for time. Time and mass have no starting point. But I agree with the big bang in the most important aspect: space is a vacuum filled with electromagnetic waves, not particles.
This seems like symantics until you go study solar flares and get told that they are particle stream events being physically thrust into space; and since all stars have flares, space would be filled with particles, and we go full circle back to the aether. what's more, space would be filled with protons, so space would have atomic weight, space would become a solid.... this is why I contend that those are just charges equal to an ion, not actual particles; if they were particles, they wouldn't pass the earth by, they would get sucked into our gravity. If the energetic particles caught in the earth's magnetic belts were truly particles, they would not disappear over time; after their charge dissipated, the particle would still be there, so the radiation belts would continue to accrue those protons ... by now they would be solid belts of hydrogen or something, there would be 4 billion years of protons collected out there and a particle stream event is thick with protons, get the picture? Solar flares are explosions of light, and light does not contain mass, hence solar flares are not particle stream events, they are super charged concentrations of light... if you could put one under a microscope, you wouldn't see anything, but we can detect them in our radiation belts; you have a magnetic charge hitting a magnetic field and it imprints the field with its charge... think of it electrically and it makes perfect sense.