The Universe sprang out of Nothing

[Gian]

Im not a scientist (would v much like to be) but in the meantime can someone sketch out for me in simple terms how the universe came from nothing as I believe Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins assert, OR point me to any easy-to-understand papers I can read.

Cheerz

GIAN

[Airbrush]

When they say the universe came from nothing, what they mean is it came from nothing that we KNOW about. It could not have come from absolutely nothing in the literal sense.

[Gian]

When they say the universe came from nothing, what they mean is it came from nothing that we KNOW about. It could not have come from absolutely nothing in the literal sense.

Ah ok. So I guess a religious person could say that the nothing we know about could just as easily be called God as anything. Interesting....

Cheers

Gian

[StringJunky]

Ah ok. So I guess a religious person could say that the nothing we know about could just as easily be called God as anything. Interesting....

Cheers

Gian

 

All gods live in the gaps.

 

Saying that the universe came from nothing is just a frank admission that science doesn't know...yet.

Edited March 1, 2013 by StringJunky

[imatfaal]

Gian

 

Why not ask Lawrence Krauss? We have a question and answer with Prof Krauss in the pipeline - have a read here

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/73110-an-sfn-qa-session-with-lawrence-krauss-call-for-questions/

[Arch2008]

Einstein showed that energy and matter are two forms of the same thing. Both energy and matter have a property called mass which is affected by the fundamental force of gravity. To move a mass to orbit requires a lot of energy to overcome the gravity of the Earth. So, analytically, mass behaves like negative energy. Hypothetically, if one totaled up all the matter (negative energy) and energy in the universe, the sum might be zero. Thus the universe can start from nothing because it still is nothing.

[IM Egdall]

In his book, A Universe from Nothing, Krauss says there is only one kind of universe where its "total energy is precisely zero." This is a closed universe (one with overall positive spacetime curvature.) A closed universe can "appear spontaneously with impunity, carrying no net energy."

 

Krauss says he assumes here Richard Feynman's sum-of-all-paths method applies to quantum gravity. Since no prediction of any quantum gravity theory has been unequivocally confirmed by measurement, his ideas are speculation.

 

See http://www.decodedscience.com/a-universe-from-nothing-lawrence-krauss-theories-explained/11450

[siderman]

The understanding of "nothing" is what makes the Big Bang so difficult to get our heads around. Since space and time and energy all originated from the event called "the big bang", nothing is what existed pre bang [that just sounds redundant}. The nothing, post bang, is defined as a singularity but in pre-bang terms the universe [space, time and energy] could have been 1000's of "light years" across. With no way to measure, there's no way to determine a size. It may seem somewhat abstract, but it makes sense to me. In an absence of space time, "an inch is as good as a mile". Happy motoring ...... MikeL