Can matter and energy come from nothing? Why is there something rather than nothing?

[seriously disabled]

Why is there something rather than nothing?

 

I know that matter and energy are interchangeable (one can be converted into the other) but can matter and energy come from nothing?

 

Did the universe come from nothing or is there something which is eternal (has no beginning and no end) and this eternal thing is the cause of everything?

[Strange]

Why is there something rather than nothing?

 

Who knows. That is philosophy (or religion) rather than physics.

 

I know that matter and energy are interchangeable (one can be converted into the other) but can matter and energy come from nothing?

 

There is no evidence that is possible.

 

Did the universe come from nothing or is there something which is eternal (has no beginning and no end) and this eternal thing is the cause of everything?

 

No one knows.

[MigL]

I've posted this before; the conservation of mass/energy is not applicable at t=0 ( the beginning ).

Conservation of mass/energy is a direct result of time translational symmetry ( Noether's theorem ), and at time t=0, time is asymmetric as there is only the forward direction. Mass/energy conservation does not apply and so, cannot be used as an excuse for disallowing the universe to 'spring' from nothing.

 

You'll have to look elsewhere.

[seriously disabled]

There really is no evidence that something can come from nothing. Because if it does then why can't a tennis ball or even a grain of dust just pop into existence from absolutely nothing.

 

The universe already exists for 14 billion years and during all this time we have seen no shred of proof that something can originate from nothing.

 

What I think is that matter and energy are probably eternal in some way or have always existed in some form.

Edited March 17, 2015 by seriously disabled

[Strange]

What I think is that matter and energy are probably eternal in some way or have always existed in some form.

 

That seems a reasonable opinion. Now you just need the science to catch up

[Sirshelley]

I've posted this before; the conservation of mass/energy is not applicable at t=0 ( the beginning ).

Conservation of mass/energy is a direct result of time translational symmetry ( Noether's theorem ), and at time t=0, time is asymmetric as there is only the forward direction. Mass/energy conservation does not apply and so, cannot be used as an excuse for disallowing the universe to 'spring' from nothing.

 

You'll have to look elsewhere.

 

Forgive me if this reply is founded in ignorance ; I'm student of electronic & software engineering.

Anywho : why not say that before space time t=null, as apposed to 0. the distinction may help.

 

To those mentioning the proof that matter and energy are interchangable: surely a model could be made, we could construct an atom , say anti hydrogen and await the decay. at least that's how I'd approach it.

[Commander]

Can matter and energy come from nothing ?

 

No.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

PS :

 

I am very sorry I have not given any Evidence.

It is similar to the Equation Zero is not equal to Infinity which is evident.

 

I quickly add this here to avoid being questioned and Reputation tarnished.

 

I consider all as my friends and has not cared to add anyone in the list.

 

Also, my first post to a topic is always a direct answer to the first post and in general without reflecting on other replies just to preserve independence of thought.

 

I am always amenable to suggestions, friendly opinions and correction on whatever I have stated anywhere in this forum !

Edited March 18, 2015 by Commander

[J.C.MacSwell]

At the risk of sounding inane, "nothing", as we think we know it, may not be nothing after all. (or in this case before all, and possibly again after all)

 

Turtles may be the best guess so far:

 

"A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!""

—Hawking, 1988

[spaceman1972]

say you have an orange, and you smash it with a hammer, that energy is transferred from the hammer to the orange instantly. now u get it?

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

yahya, please stop derailing threads. A thread in the mainstream area of the forum is not to be answered with pet theories / baseless speculation and it certainly should not be used to advertise your own threads. I have split your posts into the trash.

[CasualKilla]

Why would there be something rather than nothing? Intuition tells us thatoriginally there must have been nothing, therefore something must have came from nothing, but this may not be true, perhaps there was something in the beginning.

 

If we assume that there was indeed nothing before there was something, then the conclusion is that somethingness must be more stable than nothingness. Perhaps nothing can split into two polar opposites that can be combined again to form nothing. Perhaps mass and anti-mass, energy and anti-energy.

 

Quantum physics is already showing signs that the vacuum is not quite empty and static. Particles and "anti-particles" are constantly coming into existence, but then recombining to form "nothing".

 

Even if the theory above does not pan out, i don't believe we should attribute the somethingness to supernatural causes because we are unable to understand the concept of something appearing from nothing, we much push forward to develop and test new theories that may explain this non-intuitive phenomenon.

 

TLDR: Nothingness is unstable.

Edited March 22, 2015 by CasualKilla

[Strange]

Intuition tells us that originally there must have been nothing.

 

Mine doesn't. (Apart from the fact that intuition is largely irrelevant.)

[StringJunky]

 

Mine doesn't. (Apart from the fact that intuition is largely irrelevant.)

I concur. I don't buy 'parallel universes' either because: a) Occam's Razor - it's not the simplest idea and b) It falls into the "..turtles all the way down" argument/trap, as mentioned; this is also a fault of intuition imo. The simplest solution is that the universe has always been here.

Edited March 22, 2015 by StringJunky

[CasualKilla]

I concur. I don't buy 'parallel universes' either because: a) Occam's Razor - it's not the simplest idea and b) It falls into the "..turtles all the way down" argument/trap, as mentioned; this is also a fault of intuition imo. The simplest solution is that the universe has always been here.

That is why scientists originally thought that the universe was infinite and eternal. Astronomers looked to the sky for signs of the universe slowing contracting, but they discovered that it was in fact expanding at an accelerating rate. From there they extrapolated the big bang. The simplest solution is not always right, I would never use Occam's Razor to measure the validity of theories, though it can be a useful rule of thumb.

Edited March 22, 2015 by CasualKilla

[StringJunky]

That is why scientists originally thought that the universe was infinite and eternal. Astronomers looked to the sky for signs of the universe slowing contracting, but they discovered that it was in fact expanding at an accelerating rate. From there they extrapolated the big bang.

Yes, that's true, they did extrapolate from the expansion but it doesn't necessarily follow that the universe began from the smallest point; it could have just been the beginning of a new epoch or phase in its evolution. The eternal nature is thus still preserved. I don't think the modern consensus is that the universe began with the big bang; the infinitesimal nature of the result suggests Relativity has broken down.

 

 

The simplest solution is not always right, I would never use Occam's Razor to measure the validity of theories, though it can be a useful rule of thumb.

I'm suggesting eliminate the simplest one first.

Edited March 22, 2015 by StringJunky

[Strange]

That is why scientists originally thought that the universe was infinite and eternal. Astronomers looked to the sky for signs of the universe slowing contracting, but they discovered that it was in fact expanding at an accelerating rate. From there they extrapolated the big bang.

 

That is a slightly garbled version of history.

 

People did originally assume that the universe was eternal. From this Newton proved that it would have to be infinite (otherwise it would collapse). But Wilhelm Olber's pointed out a problem with this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox).

 

After Einstein published the general theory of relativity he added a constant to keep the universe stable. Lemaitre et al. showed that there was a solution where the universe would expand and the consequences of this were worked out. Later Hubble noticed the correlation of red-shift and distance. Various attempts to explain this were tried, including the expanding universe. Not everyone was convinced. Later the cosmic microwave background was detected and this killed the previous steady-state models.

 

Later still, it was noticed that the expansion started accelerating at some point and so dark energy was hypothesized.

 

The simplest solution is not always right, I would never use Occam's Razor to measure the validity of theories, though it can be a useful rule of thumb.

 

Indeed. Science relies on evidence. Occam's razor is useful in the case of a model like Lorentz aether theory, which is indistinguishable from special relativity but with the addition of aether (which is undetectable and doesn't do anything). In this case we can use Occam's razor to dismiss Lorentz aether theory because it introduces "unnecessary entities".

[Delbert]

Why is there something rather than nothing?

So, you've already decided that there is something. I'd have thought that before posting such an inviolate fact, I think in science one has to define such a property, i.e. existence defined such that an object can be described as something.

 

I understand that atoms are mainly empty space. Even to the extreme that I further understand that investigations into the bits that aren't the empty space are also empty space!

 

Just because something seems solid doesn't necessarily mean it is in absolute terms, i.e. it just seems solid to us.

 

Perhaps like absolute speed, we might feel there is such a thing as absolute speed, but once we look into the night sky we cannot define what speed we are doing in absolute terms. In other words there maybe relative speed, but no such thing as absolute speed. Even time, I understand from Einstein, is relative and no such thing as absolute time. Perhaps there's something similar with 'something'.

[Raz71]

To the original poster: Have you read Walter Russell -The universal One?

[seriously disabled]

Raz71,

 

No I haven't read it yet but I will

 

But in short, what does it say?

[swansont]

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Moderator Note

Please stick to the discussion raised by the OP: something from nothing. Not "evolution" of the universe.

 

 

edit: posts split into a new thread

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/89159-evolution-of-the-universe/

[conway]

I prefer to take the word used for nothing quite literally. That is "nothing" does not exist. Since it does not exist something does.

[NovaSuperNova]

Why is there something rather than nothing?

 

I know that matter and energy are interchangeable (one can be converted into the other) but can matter and energy come from nothing?

 

Did the universe come from nothing or is there something which is eternal (has no beginning and no end) and this eternal thing is the cause of everything?

Let me take a stab at it.

 

BTW, and I am not a big bang believer. I am about growth.

 

Imagine a darkness and in that darkness, within a certain distance there is nothing. Does that mean that nothing will ever go there? No

 

All things have a centre of gravity and fall under the laws of attraction.

 

Imagine a particle, 10 Trillion squared light years away, then imagine another particle the same distance in the other direction. The math suggests that 1000 squared trillion light years of nothingness between the two particles. That space that has nothing has to be definable. The space you have selected has to have distance perimeters. The inside of an empty cube or ball kind of thing. There has to be a measurement of nothing in reference to how far you are willing to think of your model.

 

So for all intents and purposes, your model is filled with total nothingness. Then, 2 particles enter your model from outside your boundaries of you empty model.

 

Then it is simple physics. The two particles come together. Not in an explosion, but in a unity. This newer, larger particle, then attracts other particles from outside your model to create a larger particle and so on. Then, in the right conditions, and what the new particles "bring to the table", a cell is formed. In my book (unpublished, but working on it), I call it the "Original Cell". (I know, nothing original about it, but I had to call it something)

 

So, in conclusion, if you are talking about where and how did things come about, they you have to think of space in a series of smaller "blocks". Where the original particles came from, I am still working on.

 

Its a much simpler way to explain it in reference to a house being built. Before the house, there was nothing. Then, a foundation had to be put in, the the walls and roof. Rooms added and so on. After time a house is where there was nothing to start with.

 

I hope this gives you something to think about.

Edited July 15, 2015 by NovaSuperNova

[swansont]

Let me take a stab at it.

 

 

!

Moderator Note

Questions in the physics section should be addressed using accepted physics. If you have your own ideas of a scientific nature, they should go in speculations (please check the rules and posting guidelines of that section)

[Strange]

BTW, and I am not a big bang believer. I am about growth.

 

"Belief" shouldn't come into it. It is a scientific theory and, currently, the one that best fits the evidence. And it is "all about growth", so it should appeal to you.

 

Imagine a particle, 10 Trillion squared light years away, then imagine another particle the same distance in the other direction.

 

You haven't said what sort of particle or where it came from. The big bang theory nicely predicts the creation of exactly the right amounts of hydrogen and helium that we see in the universe.

 

The math suggests that 1000 squared trillion light years of nothingness between the two particles.

 

My math suggests the distance between them is 2 x (10 Trillion squared) light years.

[truedeity]

Matter cannot come from nothing