How’s it going everyone?
I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh
Perspective Podcast.
Today, we are talking about nothing!
Absolutely nothing.
Did the Universe Really Come From Nothing?
A few episodes ago, we asked the question,
“What Happened before the Big Bang?”
If you haven’t yet listened to that podcast,
be sure to do so!
I stuck mostly with Stephen Hawking’s take
on space-time and focused on the emergence
of time itself.
But the time has come to go deeper.
We are getting our hands messy today with
quantum physics.
We are going to see if we can figure out why
some scientists say that everything did indeed,
come from nothing.
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When I run into religious arguments against
mainstream science, I often hear a line that
goes something like this: “And what about
the Big Bang?
Now scientists would have us believe that
something came from nothing.
How absurd!
Something is something and nothing is nothing
and to think otherwise is nonsense!
Besides, we never ever see something come
out of nothing do we?”
Do we?
Here is this common misconception in a nutshell:
“The universe couldn’t have possibly popped
into existence out of nothing.”
Quantum Physics is, in a way, the new kid
on the block.
While the fundamentals of the Big Bang theory
represent well established and well tested
science, Quantum Physics is lagging behind.
Like all new sciences, it isn’t as widely
accepted or well understood.
Does that mean that it is necessarily “less
true” than more established science?
Not at all.
It is actually one of the most robust and
productive tools we have in the field of physics.
Most of the time, when we talk about the big
bang, we are talking about a microscopic singularity
that expanded into the universe we live in
today.
Yet scientists are not content with resting
on what is well tested or understood.
They are perplexed by the unknown, the promise
of the prize of new knowledge just beyond
our horizon.
Therefore, in recent years, scientists such
as Lawrence Krauss, Michio Kaku, and Brian Greene
have seen what quantum mechanics can
tell us about the origins of the universe.
The math behind quantum physics has been astonishingly
accurate so far, and has made things like
our cell phones and your internet access possible
today.
So when we turn this powerful mathematical
model to the biggest questions of the universe,
what is revealed?
What have these scientists and cosmologists
like them discovered?
Through mathematics and indirect observation
of quantum fluctuations, scientists can now
make the case that our universe did indeed
come into existence out of what people call,
“nothing.”
Now most people’s problem with this astonishing
discovery comes from the use of this word,
“nothing.”
In everyday language, when we say nothing,
we mean the opposite of something.
We mean absolute emptiness, an unambiguous
void.
This pure, theoretical, and definition-based
abstract doesn’t really exist.
This idea isn’t exactly what cosmologists
and quantum physicists mean.
The “nothing” they are talking about is
what is left over when we take outer space,
and remove all of its ingredients, or at least
all of the ingredients with which we are most
familiar.
If we take away stars, galaxies, dust clouds,
planets, rocks, ice, molecules, atoms, all
baryonic matter, dark matter, and energy...
What is left over?
The quote-unquote “Nothing” that is left
over, is actually a rolling boil of quantum
fluctuations, sub atomic energy that flows
in and out of existence according to Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle.
How cool is that?
When everything is stripped away, we have
this bizarre energy that can’t make up its
mind.
It phases in and out of our universe, like
swarms of bees flying in and out of a busy
hive.
An impressive fact about quantum fluctuations,
is that they represent a massive amount of
energy on larger scales.
The truth is, some 70% of the energy in the
universe comes from this humble rumbling below
space itself.
This wiggling soup of ingredients that bounce
between “is” and “isn’t” really
exists, and is that “something” that quantum
physicists mean when they say “nothing.”
I hope that helps, but I should add that even
with everything I just said, mathematically,
the quantum fluctuations can still be completely
accurately described as “nothing.”
But if everything came from nothing, how can
this agree with what we understand about the
conservation of matter or the conservation
of energy?
Haven’t we heard that matter and energy
can’t be created or destroyed, but they
can only be changed into other forms?
If that is what you were thinking, then you
are on the right track.
The next thing to remember is that energy
and matter are basically the same thing.
Do you remember Einstein’s most famous equation:
E=MC2 and what it represents?
Basically, matter can turn into energy (think
of an atomic bomb) and energy can turn into
matter.
We are talking about two sides of the same
coin.
We live in what cosmologists call a “flat
universe.”
Put another way, if we mathematically account
for all of the matter, all of the dark matter,
and all of the gravity, all virtual particles,
and all of the positive and negative energy
of the universe and add it together, how much
energy would that total?
Well, this isn’t just a hypothetical question.
Scientists have actually done the calculation.
So how much energy does it total?
The answer is zero: Zero joules, zero electronvolts,
zero calories.
The laws of conservation are completely satisfied.
Here is an oversimplified equation that I
think would help.
0 = -1000 + 1000.
This statement is still true when we read
it backwards: 1000 - 1000 = 0.
Now imagine that the equals sign is the big
bang.
Before the universe expanded, we had zero.
Now that we have a full and complex universe,
all of its laws, matter, and energy can be
represented by positive 1000 and negative
1000.
If we add all the positive and negative matter
and energy together, we are back to zero.
This is an over-simplified explanation of
how nothing can create something, and something
can equal nothing.
I hope it helps, and I hope that the next
time you hear someone say, “The universe
couldn’t have popped into existence out
of nothing” you will now be able to say
something, rather than nothing.
But before I wrap up this episode, there is
one more point I’d like to make in this
whole discussion about nothing.
This is me just thinking out loud, but I can’t
help it.
New and challenging ideas, at the edge of
my understanding, only make sense to me if
I can think out loud.
Do you remember Edwin Hubble’s observations?
He was the first to discover that the fabric
of space itself is stretching between the
galaxies.
Our universe is expanding.
In fact, it is even accelerating in its expansion.
This is often attributed to enigmatic dark
energy, a phenomenon that scientists are still
trying to tackle and define.
I have been perplexed by the idea of dark
energy since my childhood.
I even wrote a report on it as a sixth grader.
There must be massive amounts of it to push
against all gravity and the forces of nature
and push the universe to expand even faster
than it already is!
Where has all that energy been all this time?
Where is it coming from?
Many scientists believe that the evidence
points to quantum fluctuations giving rise
to the singularity that expanded into our
universe.
In the absolute emptiness of non-existence,
quantum fluctuations produced all existence.
And it started out small, a little bit of
space-time that eventually expanded into a
massive cosmos.
But it didn’t end there, did it?
The universe is still expanding and even accelerating
in its expansion based upon what we can measure.
The Big Bang isn’t something that happened,
it is something that is still happening, and
we are seeing it happen from the inside!
If the seemingly empty space between these
galaxies is filled with humming and jostling
quantum fluctuations, the same kind of fluctuations
that created the fabric of space-time in the
first place, could it be that they are still
busy at work, creating even more space-time?
What if the same quantum mechanisms that started
our cosmos are responsible for making more
cosmos between the galaxies, causing the universe
to expand?
Could the mystery of dark energy one day be
solved completely through quantum mechanics?
Could this explain where the universe is getting
all of this extra energy?
Well, I don’t know.
Like I said, we have reached the edge of my
understanding of this topic.
Nevertheless, I look forward to the day when
we all can better understand this bizarre
universe of quantum mechanics, dark energy,
and the unintuitive potential of “nothing.”
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That is all I have for you today, but the
conversation continues across social media
and in the comment sections below.
Do you agree with today’s message?
Am I mistaken about some detail?
How can I better elaborate on this topic in
the future?
Feel free to share your perspective!
