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Up • Albert Einstein • Why War? • Schrödinger's Cat • The Standard Model • Supersymmetry • String Theory • Higgs Physics • Quantum Nonlocality • Vacuum Fluctuations
How the Universe
can come from Nothing.
I have collected here a few quotes
that deal with vacuum fluctuations, and the idea that things - perhaps
even the entire universe - can indeed arise from nothing via
natural processes.
Vacuum Fluctuations and Virtual
Particles
-
In the everyday world, energy is always
unalterably fixed; the law of energy conservation is a cornerstone of
classical physics. But in the quantum microworld, energy can appear
and disappear out of nowhere in a spontaneous and unpredictable
fashion. (Davies, 1983, 162)
-
The uncertainty principle implies that
particles can come into existence for short periods of time even when
there is not enough energy to create them. In effect, they are created
from uncertainties in energy. One could say that they briefly "borrow"
the energy required for their creation, and then, a short time later,
they pay the "debt" back and disappear again. Since these particles do
not have a permanent existence, they are called virtual particles.
(Morris, 1990, 24)
-
Even though we can't see them, we know
that these virtual particles are "really there" in empty space because
they leave a detectable trace of their activities. One effect of
virtual photons, for example, is to produce a tiny shift in the energy
levels of atoms. They also cause an equally tiny change in the
magnetic moment of electrons. These minute but significant alterations
have been very accurately measured using spectroscopic techniques.
(Davies, 1994, 32)
-
[Virtual particle pairs] are predicted
to have a calculable effect upon the energy levels of atoms. The
effect expected is minute - only a change of one part in a billion,
but it has been confirmed by experimenters.
In 1953 Willis Lamb measured this
excited energy state for a hydrogen atom. This is now called the Lamb
shift. The energy difference predicted by the effects of the vacuum on
atoms is so small that it is only detectable as a transition at
microwave frequencies. The precision of microwave measurements is so
great that Lamb was able to measure the shift to five significant
figures. He subsequently received the Nobel Prize for his work. No
doubt remains that virtual particles are really there. (Barrow &
Silk, 1993, 65-66)
-
In modern physics, there is no such
thing as "nothing." Even in a perfect vacuum, pairs of virtual
particles are constantly being created and destroyed. The existence of
these particles is no mathematical fiction. Though they cannot be
directly observed, the effects they create are quite real. The
assumption that they exist leads to predictions that have been
confirmed by experiment to a high degree of accuracy. (Morris, 1990,
25)
Vacuum Fluctuations and the Origin of
the Universe
-
There are something like ten million
million million million million million million million million
million million million million million (1 with eighty [five] zeroes
after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe.
Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory,
particles can be created out of energy in the form of
particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of
where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the
universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of
positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by
gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less
energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to
expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is
pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has
negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately
uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy
exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the
total energy of the universe is zero. (Hawking, 1988, 129) [thanks to
Ross King for this quote]
-
There is a still more remarkable
possibility, which is the creation of matter from a state of zero
energy. This possibility arises because energy can be both positive
and negative. The energy of motion or the energy of mass is always
positive, but the energy of attraction, such as that due to certain
types of gravitational or electromagnetic field, is negative.
Circumstances can arise in which the positive energy that goes to make
up the mass of newly-created particles of matter is exactly offset by
the negative energy of gravity of electromagnetism. For example, in
the vicinity of an atomic nucleus the electric field is intense. If a
nucleus containing 200 protons could be made (possible but difficult),
then the system becomes unstable against the spontaneous production of
electron-positron pairs, without any energy input at all. The reason
is that the negative electric energy can exactly offset the energy of
their masses.
In the gravitational case the situation
is still more bizarre, for the gravitational field is only a spacewarp
- curved space. The energy locked up in a spacewarp can be converted
into particles of matter and antimatter. This occurs, for example,
near a black hole, and was probably also the most important source of
particles in the big bang. Thus, matter appears spontaneously out of
empty space. The question then arises, did the primeval bang possess
energy, or is the entire universe a state of zero energy, with the
energy of all the material offset by negative energy of gravitational
attraction?
It is possible to settle the issue by a
simple calculation. Astronomers can measure the masses of galaxies,
their average separation, and their speeds of recession. Putting these
numbers into a formula yields a quantity which some physicists have
interpreted as the total energy of the universe. The answer does
indeed come out to be zero within the observational accuracy. The
reason for this distinctive result has long been a source of
puzzlement to cosmologists. Some have suggested that there is a deep
cosmic principle at work which requires the universe to have exactly
zero energy. If that is so the cosmos can follow the path of least
resistance, coming into existence without requiring any input of
matter or energy at all. (Davies, 1983, 31-32)
-
Once our minds accept the mutability of
matter and the new idea of the vacuum, we can speculate on the origin
of the biggest thing we know - the universe. Maybe the universe itself
sprang into existence out of nothingness - a gigantic vacuum
fluctuation which we know today as the big bang. Remarkably, the laws
of modern physics allow for this possibility. (Pagels, 1982, 247)
-
In general relativity, spacetime can be
empty of matter or radiation and still contain energy stored in its
curvature. Uncaused, random quantum fluctuations in a flat, empty,
featureless spacetime can produce local regions with positive or
negative curvature. This is called the "spacetime foam" and the
regions are called "bubbles of false vacuum." Wherever the curvature
is positive a bubble of false vacuum will, according to Einstein's
equations, exponentially inflate. In 10-42 seconds the
bubble will expand to the size of a proton and the energy within will
be sufficient to produce all the mass of the universe.
The bubbles start out with no matter,
radiation, or force fields and maximum entropy. They contain energy in
their curvature, and so are a "false vacuum." As they expand, the
energy within increases exponentially. This does not violate energy
conservation since the false vacuum has a negative pressure (believe
me, this is all follows from the equations that Einstein wrote down in
1916) so the expanding bubble does work on itself.
As the bubble universe expands, a kind
of friction occurs in which energy is converted into particles. The
temperature then drops and a series of spontaneous symmetry breaking
processes occurs, as in a magnet cooled below the Curie point and a
essentially random structure of the particles and forces appears.
Inflation stops and we move into the more familiar big bang.
The forces and particles that appear
are more-or-less random, governed only by symmetry principles (like
the conservation principles of energy and momentum) that are also not
the product of design but exactly what one has in the absence of
design.
The so-called "anthropic coincidences,"
in which the particles and forces of physics seem to be "fine-tuned"
for the production of Carbon-based life are explained by the fact that
the spacetime foam has an infinite number of universes popping off,
each different. We just happen to be in the one where the forces and
particles lent themselves to the generation of carbon and other atoms
with the complexity necessary to evolve living and thinking organisms.
(Stenger, 1996)
-
Where did all the matter and radiation
in the universe come from in the first place? Recent intriguing
theoretical research by physicists such as Steven Weinberg of Harvard
and Ya. B. Zel'dovich in Moscow suggest that the universe began as a
perfect vacuum and that all the particles of the material world were
created from the expansion of space...
Think about the universe immediately
after the Big Bang. Space is violently expanding with explosive vigor.
Yet, as we have seen, all space is seething with virtual pairs of
particles and antiparticles. Normally, a particle and anti-particle
have no trouble getting back together in a time interval...short
enough so that the conservation of mass is satisfied under the
uncertainty principle. During the Big Bang, however, space was
expanding so fast that particles were rapidly pulled away from their
corresponding antiparticles. Deprived of the opportunity to recombine,
these virtual particles had to become real particles in the real
world. Where did the energy come from to achieve this
materialization?
Recall that the Big Bang was like the
center of a black hole. A vast supply of gravitational energy was
therefore associated with the intense gravity of this cosmic
singularity. This resource provided ample energy to completely fill
the universe with all conceivable kinds of particles and
antiparticles. Thus, immediately after the Planck time, the universe
was flooded with particles and antiparticles created by the violent
expansion of space. (Kaufmann, 1985, 529-532)
-
...the idea of a First Cause sounds
somewhat fishy in light of the modern theory of quantum mechanics.
According to the most commonly accepted interpretation of quantum
mechanics, individual subatomic particles can behave in unpredictable
ways and there are numerous random, uncaused events. (Morris, 1997,
19)
References
-
Barrow, John D. & Silk, Joseph.
1993. The Left Hand of Creation. London: J.M. Dent & Sons.
-
Davies, Paul. 1983. God and the New
Physics. London: J.M. Dent & Sons.
-
Davies, Paul. 1994. The Last Three
Minutes. New York: BasicBooks.
-
Hawking, Steven. 1988. A Brief
History of Time. Toronto: Bantam.
-
Kaufmann, William J. 1985.
Universe. New York: W.H. Freeman & Co.
-
Morris, Richard. 1990. The Edges of
Science. New York: Prentice Hall.
-
Morris, Richard. 1997. Achilles in
the Quantum World. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
-
Pagels, Heinz. 1982. The Cosmic
Code. Toronto: Bantam.
-
Stenger, Victor. 1996. Posting on
DEBATE list (19 Mar)
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