1Kg mass = Universe??

[Daecon]

I remember reading a theory (but unfortunately I forget where) that the Big Bang could have been kick-started needing only about a kilogram of matter, and all the resulting matter and energy in the Universe is the result of an equation between matter and energy and zero-point energy not actually being zero.

 

Is anyone familiar with this idea? I'll have to try and find which book I found it in to explain it a little better, but can anyone expand (heh, pun) on this concept?

[Martin]

I remember reading a theory (but unfortunately I forget where) that the Big Bang could have been kick-started needing only about a kilogram of matter, and all the resulting matter and energy in the Universe is the result of an equation between matter and energy and zero-point energy not actually being zero.

 

Is anyone familiar with this idea? I'll have to try and find which book I found it in to explain it a little better, but can anyone expand (heh, pun) on this concept?

 

 

try this

http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Guth/Guth3.html

 

It is by Alan Guth, an authority on inflation scenarios. Down at the bottom of the page he says something like "If inflation is right the universe could be called the ultimate free lunch."

 

That is, could have started from only a few ounces of primordial matter. The rest having been created by the inflaton field.

 

BTW I wouldn't take inflation scenarios too seriously, or the inflaton field that has been made up to make them work. The whole business is highly speculative. There are OTHER ways of getting the bigbang expansion started that are more RECENT and more ECONOMICAL---don't involve such a lot of exotic assumptions.

 

But the various inflation scenarios have been around for a long time, since like 1980, and they were the first ways to solve certain puzzles. So they gave a lot of name-recognition and acceptance. It is just that now they are not the ONLY ways of solving the puzzles that originally led to thinking up inflation. So I would suggest that a person reserve judgment.

 

However you asked where you heard about this apparent violation of energy conservation and the answer is it goes back at least to Alan Guth around 1981 and he talks about it in many places and has been quoted all over the place about "the ultimate free lunch". That could be where you heard it. Maybe.