Hafnium

I fully agree to what you are saying. What I mean by "distance is not essential" is, that TIME is the crucial dimension (with respect to the definition of "nothingness"). The lack of one, two or all three dimensonal distances wouldn't yet be "nothingness" as long as time is present. Without time, no other dimension could exist, so that would be the definition of nothingness. (I think) To develop the question a little further: can "nothingness" exist elsewhere than outside our universe? Imagine "nothingness" somewhere inside the boundaries of our universe - kind of a bubble "filled" with nothingness, an inverse of the universe, so to speak. (Let's call that iBubble). The iBubble wouldn't be like a black hole, as the black hole has gravity and bends the time-space around and into the hole, whereas time-space around the iBubble would bend around and away from the iBubble. Therefore we couldn't even reconize it. However, I think that, to "keep" th iBubble remaining, a force would be required - and that would mean that nothingness isn't nothingness. Conclusion: I think, that nothingness only exists outside our universe.

Stephen Hawking was thinking about the universe (as we know it) as a "bubble", outside which "anything" would be "nothing" to us because it doesn't exist in our space and therefore we couldn't ever be aware of it. However, that wouldn't be "nothingness", but it's an interesting question. Anyway, I think the answer is YES, nothingness can exist. I dont' think distance is essential. It is not difficult to describe something in a system with one, two or three dimensions, or even none: an infinitely small point. The key thing would be, that if TIME doesn't exist in a space, then there would be nothingness. TIME is required to define or describe anything we know - particles, energies, forces, light, magnetic field, etc. But if time wouldn't exist in that space - none of those would exist, either. The way I understand Hawkings "bubble" is, that the reason why we couldn't understand anything outside this our bubble is because the time-space is bent so that we cannot travel outside, nor observe anything beyond that. But if time and time-space is so heavily bent, that it forms a shell around our bubble, and the space outside lacks a time-dimension - then nothing would exist, resulting in complete nothingness.