amazing scientific discovery: everything = nothing!

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
1

I just learnt something really cool about the universe today.

But first some background: I’ve always had a tendency to mock those who put forward the idea of the universe being equivalent to nothing. They like to argue that because they can point out some kind of balance or symmetry in the universe, then that balance or symmetry functions to cancel itself out and therefore renders the universe equivalent to nothingness. For example, all particles have either positive, negative, or neutral charge. The positive cancels the negative (and the neutral neither adds nor substracts anything), and therefore charge doesn’t really exist. Or for another example, all matter and anti-matter cancel, making for nothingness. They then proceed to answer one of the most fundamental questions of all science and philosophy: why is there something and not nothing? Because, they say, there really isn’t something. There’s only ever nothing! Thus, there is no need to explain anything.

I make fun of this generally because I can’t accept it as a satisfactory answer to the questions of why such-and-such phenomenon exist, or why this or that exists. I can’t just chalk up such a profound question as “Where does life come from?” with “Nowhere; It is nothing; Therefore, it doesn’t need to be explained.” Such an answer seems to me to be deeply misguided and based on a deep misunderstanding of the nature of reality.

But now I’m second guessing myself. I have just discovered something amazing about the universe that makes these thinkers seem not such crackpots after all. That discovery is this:

The total amount of matter in the universe is 10^53 Kg.

The total amount of gravitational energy in the universe is -10^53 Kg.

They are perfectly equal but with opposite sign (the gravitational energy is put in terms of kilograms because that is what you get when you convert it from energy to mass using E=mc^2). Therefore, the total amount of mass/energy in the universe sums to zero.

Amazing!

It seems as though nature not only conserves the amount of mass/energy she carries, but conserves it at zero! Everything is equivalent to nothing!

Or is it?

Well, before being too hasty with such a conclusion, I would like to put just this question on the table. I should rather ask, not state: Does this fact entail that everything is equivalent to nothing?

I would like the object of this thread to be a discussion around this question and its potential answers.

To begin with, let me start off by point out this one interesting implication (which may or may not entice the reader in one direction or another): I’ve always admired Einstein for having struck at the mystery of gravity so profoundly as to almost explain it entirely. I say ‘almost’ because his explanation, like most explanations in science or philosophy, only spawns further questions. The central question that general relativity spawns, at least in my mind, is why does the presence of matter result in the curvature of spacetime towards itself?

The interesting implication I want to point out is that now, with this new insight into the nature of the universe, I have an answer to this question: matter curves spacetime towards itself because the presence of matter must be accompanied by a counterbalancing presence of gravitational energy such that the total mass/energy is conserved at zero. So although the presence of matter is the result of something coming from nothing, it is only possible because it comes along with an opposing something (namely gravity) also coming from nothing, and those two elements perfectly balance the universal “check book” at zero.

That’s just so neat and tiday and wrapped up in a little red ribbon.

What’s your thoughts?

2

so then the Universe , is not then expanding

3

Yeah, I don’t know how that works. It is still expanding to be sure, but my understanding (which isn’t very good) is that the “vaccum energy” of space, which drives the expansion, is neutral with respect to the matter/gravity dichotomy.

4

investigate Cosmic Plasmas , here , matter is created , and since matter needs space , the expansion of the Universe assuming its true , is caused by the creation of matter by Cosmic Plasmas

plasmascience.net/tpu/TheUniverse.html

north

5

That’s really just an interpretation of Einstein’s Field Equations:

Since the geometry is equal to the matter/energy, subtracting one from both sides leaves you with zero.

It seems like you’re more interested in how and why the two sides of the equation are equal at all. And you’re right; a universe from nothing might help explain that.

Also:

Stick with Lawrence Krauss’ explanation of the expanding universe (which is where I’m assuming this whole thread came from?). It’s much more grounded.

6

such nonsense can only be created by mathematical investigation

so how does a Universe , physically , manifest from nothing ? forget the mathematics for the moment

7

or what came first the physical Universe or the mathematical Universe ?

the physical obviously

8

Actually, it came from an online course I’m taking taught by this guy.

Consider it this way:

nothing = space = neutral = 0
something = matter = positive = 1
anti-something = gravity = negative = -1

So if 0=1-1 then nothing/space=matter-gravity.

Unless you’re Pythagorus :smiley:

9

and Pythagoras was not physical ?

10

Read Pythagorus.

11

I didn’t say the universe came from nothing, and I certainly haven’t done the math.

You should ask that guy a question for all of us, gib–the one on north’s mind. Wouldn’t you consider a quantum fluctuation ‘something’? Why would there be quantum fluctuations period if there’s nothing? I mean really nothing, not the nothing that, as Lawrence Krauss puts it, “isn’t really nothing any more.” I have no problem with the universe summing to a neat and tidy zero and coming from space that we would traditionally define as ‘nothing’, but how do you explain the existence of quantum phenomena at all?

At the risk of infinite regress, the universe from nothing can do a lot, but it is not a satisfactory answer to the question of origin.

12

What would be?

13

I agree with you Anthem, and in the final analysis, I don’t think we can say the universe really came from nothing (in fact, neither does prof. Whittle). It’s just that I’ve been humbled somewhat by this news and I no longer regard the “nothingists” (whom I would laugh at previously) as completely rediculous, though I still disagree with them.

I’m just getting into all this advanced cosmology and my understanding of it is far too premature to say anything certain about what it all means, but what I’m fairly certain of - what prof. Whittle has actually said (IIRC) - is that the total mass/energy of the universe sums to zero. I get lost in all the details, and this makes it difficult to answer the many questions that it raises for me, but here are a few I recall from the course:

– Prof. Whittle calls the energy of gravity “negative” (which warrants the negative sign on the 10^53Kg worth), implying (I suppose) that the 10^53Kg of actual mass/energy is positive.

One question this raises for me is whether other forms of energy (i.e. light, radiation, strong force, etc.) ought to be considered positive and therefore included in the 10^53Kg or whether prof. Whittle only means to refer to actual matter (i.e. the stuff made from protons, neutrons, and electrons).

– Prof. Whittle also calls the expansion of space “falling outwards” and that this “falling” is a result of the “vaccum energy” or “dark energy” of space. What I wonder is whether or not we are to understand this energy as “negative” like gravity. This would make for a certain symmetry within the total amount of negative energy - there’s negative gravitational energy, which causes things to fall inward, and there’s negative vaccum energy, which causes things to fall outward.

– Prof. Whittle says that the amazing thing about this vaccum energy is that it keeps creating more of itself - or to put it another way - space keeps creating more space. This would at first seem to violate certain conservation laws, but prof. Whittle tells us that it gets this energy from the energy of gravity (again, I question whether this implies that the sign stays negative or is converted to positive in the exchange). Now, I’m not sure what this emplies for gravity. One would think that if energy is to be conserved, the creation of more space (and thus more dark energy), if it drains energy from gravity, would imply that gravity is slowly becoming less as the universe progresses. Would a day come when all gravity has been completely drained, and on that day would the universe stop expanding? I always held the assumption that so long as a mass existed, it exerted a certain amount of gravity and that gravity never waivered. To be sure, with the expansion of space comes the ever greater distancing of masses from each other, and therefore the gravitational power they have over each other lessening, but that’s different from saying each mass has less gravity inherently.

– Prof. Whittle says that the Big Bang could have began with as little matter as one finds in a typical apple. He didn’t say anything about the amount of energy that would also have to be present (say, for example, in the form of photons), and one could assume that a HUGE amount of energy existed and over time gradually converted into the collossal amount of matter we see in the universe today… or, if what prof. Whittle is saying is right, and that the total amount of mass/energy is always conserved, then there need not be a huge amount of energy. If the apple’s worth of mass is all that existed, and we call that positive mass/energy, then we only need an equal amount of negative mass/energy to maintain this conservation. The creation of more matter and energy wouldn’t be so problematic since as long as they are created in equal proportions (both negative and positive), then the total amount of mass/energy is still conserved. And like you said, this wouldn’t be a scenario in which something is created out of nothing - that is, absolute nothing - just one in which something more is created out of something less.

That’s the level of my understanding so far. You figure out the rest.

14

Hmm. I don’t know? And I mean that as an answer.

At a certain point, the answer is probably beyond our observation. We can probably guess at answers beyond our observation and possibly even infer their existence without direct observation. But as you delve deeper and deeper, how do you know when you’ve hit the prime mover? How do you know there’s not another turtle? There’d have to be some sort of recursive definition somewhere, and even then…

Aw crap.

15

I’m not sure what the equation “everything = nothing” is supposed to mean, but I would at least like to observe that the universe seems to have an information content far greater than 0, whereas I believe a “nothing” universe would have 0 information content. So, in my view, a human brain or a DVD movie demonstrate conclusively that the universe is more than “nothing.” Technically, any brute physical fact would suffice for such a demonstration, although in modern culture I think it is easier for us to view a DVD as a form of information or information storage, if demonstration of the existence of information in the universe is required.

I have some vague sort of thoughts on this related to MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics), however. If (in an extreme form of MWI) every fact is true in some world but false in some other (within the limits of self-consistency within a single world), then possibly in some grand sense the universe (as a whole including all worlds) may contain 0 information. However, we human beings lack such a grand perspective. From our perspective, the universe does contain information.

16

Information arises from matter/energy and gravity. The information on a DVD is not some magical imprint that exists apart from matter; it is a physical part of the device, and it needs other matter and energy to interpret it.

17

There’s nothing magical or mystical about my position. Furthermore, I took pains in my post to explain that although I considered a DVD movie an apt example of information storage, there is nothing particularly special about DVDs, as opposed to other physical features of the universe. However, it is possible that my post appears to be confused because I am in fact confused about what the equation “everything = nothing” is supposed to mean.

For that reason, let me explain a bit further. If the OP were to say that the DVD is nothing, because the gravitational energy of the DVD perfectly balances the mass energy of its constituent particles, I would point out – as I attempted to in my original post – that a DVD movie nevertheless contains a story, or information, and that certainly this information is not “canceled out” by the balance between mass and gravitational energy of the constituent particles. This is really just an appeal to common sense.

I say all of this with full knowledge that the movie is recorded in the physical configuration of particles of the DVD and that reading the DVD requires equipment compatible with the algorithmic protocols used to store the movie on the DVD and with the physical structure of the DVD. However, these facts have no particular bearing on my position whatsoever. If you believe that they do, then you do not understand my position.

18

There’s a reason we don’t lie awake at night wondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin… and it’s not because we answered with “I don’t know”.

It’s because we didn’t ask the question in the first place…

We know the universe exists and we know it didn’t always exist (at least not in this form)… So it makes sense to ask for a cause…

I don’t know that there was ever a time where there wasn’t vacume energy, nor that there was ever a time where that vacume energy wasn’t subject to quantum fluctuations… I can ponder the possibility and ask what the cause might have been if this was ever the case… but I might as well have asked how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

For all I know… the question dosn’t even make sense… right?

19

I understand your position, it’s just wrong.

Mad Man:

I can agree with that. It makes sense to ask about our origins no doubt, but somewhere along the line it becomes unprovable and, like you said, the question might not even make sense any more.

And the answer is it depends how hard you throw the bastards at the pin.

20

In my reading of your post, you answered yourself.

(1 + -1) = 0, true.

I can’t go along with this, because Space doesn’t seem to be “nothing”.
(meaning, to the photon, Space isn’t a “nothing”)

Instead, I’ll just go along with the bottom two.
something = matter = positive = 1
anti-something = gravity = negative = -1

Which means, the total amount of mass in the universe is balanced in tension against the total amount of gravitational energy in the universe.

Or, in other words.

The total amount of knot sizes and tensions in a large volume of gelatin material is balanced in tension against the total amount of tensioned energy in the gelatin material.

Which means that if I create a new knot, I will displace a given amount of gelatin, and in so doing, I will create a new account of equal tension energy proportionate to that knot’s tension just upon creating it.

I don’t have to figure out how to make an anti-tension knot to balance out the new knot’s tension because it’s tension energy directly balances it’s tension as a knot.

And the displacement of the gelatin from the new knot will cause an expansion of volume of the entire gelatin form.

Therefore, the knot is it’s counter knot in account of mass to energy in tension (model of gravity) and the mass form in the gelatin increase volume displacement in the gelatin (not a large amount, but many knots will eventually displace enough gelatin).

So
1 + -1 = Knot + Tension
Knot + Tension = Balance
Balance = 0

Just because we see a 0 doesn’t mean the Knot and Tension are “nothing”, but instead that there is no unstable amount of mass or energy displaced by the occurrence that needs to be counter-balanced for stability.

Or

Just because we see a 0 doesn’t mean the 10^53 Kg mass universe and the -10^53 Kg gravitational energy universe are “nothing”, but instead that there is no unstable amount of mass or energy displaced by the occurrence that needs to be counter-balanced for stability.

That’s my thinking of things anyway.