That we came from "Nothing" is scientifically possible

[Moses]

Nothing is a very subjective term but when it comes to quantum mechanics seems to imply an actual something. This something or vacuum is where the energy is unquantifiable and hence not "physical" but the effects have been emprically verified where virtual particles pop into and then out of existence from this vacuum energy (called zero point energy) and also certain waves have been recorded in the vacuum. It is essentially the ground state of any system.

Now this all happens within our universe but energy can be stored within the curvature of space since space (known as space-time) is maleable and flexible. Physicists say that the big bang came out of zero geometery, meaning from a flat, smooth, and highly symmetric state of space-time. Since space is flexible it is quite possible that space would be in a state such as that. Space-time in this scenario would be so flat and smooth that nothing could be quantified and their would be no space between things or distances to measure so it would be like nothing to us because we cannot quanitify it. Yet within this flat space would be stored up energy.

Since highly symmetric states are very unstable and are prone into falling into more structured asymmetric states (where distances can be measured since things are unequal) there would be occassional flucuations in this quantum void that would cause disturbances like little bubble regions with energy in them, but they would then close back in on themselves due to lack of being self sustaining like our universe is for a multitude of reasons.

In our case the quantum flucuation that would be our universe, the space-time inflation caused all sorts of energy from the gravitiational pull (and a bunch of different reasons) to form into more stable forms of being, such as particles that then became more stable into atoms etc etc. This was all possible because the negative and postives energies happened to balance out, giving our universe a total of zero energy. This rough balance allows the universe to exist for such a lengthy time as it does. It is also the measurment you would get when expecting the universe to come from "nothing".

As many scientists state when asked why there is something rather than nothing, is that "nothing" is unstable. So the more structure the more asymmetric something is and hence more stable and quantifiable. Order out of "chaos" is natural just like more asymmestric self organized organisms from the more symmetric primordial goo.

Both organisms arising from the ancient sea and a stable universe are monumental events but when you include a huge non human time span their probability increases.

[Will]

This is a really interesting take on the origin of the universe and universal symmetry.

So, to summarize, the physical universe which we are familiar with may have come from a rare balance in space time, which was incredibly unstable. The resulting reaction released an equal measurement of positive and negative matter (to use a basic term), which means that the sum total of the universe averages to zero. This explains the incredible age of the universe. Is this about right?

[Moses]

Pretty much! Isnt that amazing? This what scientists like Victor Stenger, Stephen Hawkings, Alexander Vilken and many others seem to believe is the case.

[Moses]

I apologize for flooding this thread with my own posts but this explanation for the origin of the universe is commonly known amongst scientists which is of course one reason so many of them are atheists. Sadly theories like this are not well known amongst us folks in the general public which is certainly one reason so many of us are theists.

All in all we need more scientific studies in our schools due to this disparity and screw it if we hurt some people's feelings. I recently found out that at my old high school things like this were not taught due to the fact it might hurt peoples feelings!As a matter of fact no cosmology was taught in my public schools because it would inherently have to talk about theories like this.

[Will]

Atheism is simply a matter of realizing faith in the supernatural is fundamentally unreasonable. After you've taken that step (and have gone to school for a bit), then you get to the meaty stuff like this. I'll admit that a lot of my education in physics is from books, not school, but the evidence to support the myriad hypotheses are all available to anyone.

As for hurt feelings, science doesn't care and neither do I. If you want to believe that Santa Clause can deliver billions of toys within the span of about 24 hours, that's your business. If I point out the relative impossibility of such a story, don't expect me to feel badly for trying to educate. Why bother going to school at all if you're not prepared to have your paradigm shifted?

[Chimera]

I totally need to get A Brief History of Time.

[tornado]

Thank you for this. This is really cool stuff.

As for hurt feelings, science doesn't care and neither do I.

I agree! I'm sick of people expecting science to make room for their ridiculous fairy-tale beliefs.

[Tom62]

Thanks for the posting. This stuff is really fascinating. A pity they never treated it at my old school.

[Moses]

I am really glad that you guys like it since it blew my mind too. One thing I am afraid I left out is that the total energy of our universe has been proven to be zero due to gravitational energy. So this insight into our universe lends some credibility to this theory because their seems to be a few emprical results that point to this. Our universe contains properties as if it did come from "nothing".

[mrwynd]

I really enjoyed that explanation. I was able to understand what you meant!

Thanks

[jcm]

I have a dumb question about this. If nothing is space in a smooth uniformed state, isn't that "something" which is in a uniformed smooth state? Isn't it just our inability to measure what is always there?

[Moses]

Your right. A complete and utter nothing is an abstract notion that does not exist in reality. The "nothing" that quantum mechanics seems to believe in is an actual something that tends to be be lacking much structure to it. For instance planck time is the smallest amount of time we are capable of measuring. That does not mean there is not smaller moments of time it just means we cannot quantify them.

As Victor Stenger has said "we invent the laws of physics". Meaning we create a structure to rationally explain what we see. Due to that it sometimes is flawed and needs further revision and exploration. For instance the laws of conservation of energy get warped on the subatomic scale which has lead to the discovery of zero point energy. This as yet unquantifiable energy is what we get when we remove all the particles, yet for the same reason we have a highly structured universe, nature seems to hate a vacuum and particles just pop into and then out of existence from the vacuum state.

And that question is not dumb at all by the way.