Did the Universe truly form out of nothing?

[bapowell]

Physics is rooted on Philosophy.

Who cares? What does this have to do with the thread. Physics is an empirical science. Last I checked, philosophy is not.

 

[bapowell]

In the earliest epochs, the universe was far, far too hot for matter to exist at all.

This is quite misleading, or perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. Matter was indeed around in the earliest epochs -- the fundamental matter fields (electrons, quarks, etc) and the gauge fields were both in exist concurrently. Do you mean that it was only until the universe cooled sufficiently for matter/antimatter to fall out of equilibrium with the radiation?

 

[DaveC426913]

This is quite misleading, or perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. Matter was indeed around in the earliest epochs -- the fundamental matter fields (electrons, quarks, etc) and the gauge fields were both in exist concurrently. Do you mean that it was only until the universe cooled sufficiently for matter/antimatter to fall out of equilibrium with the radiation?

Well, I could be wrong but I do believe that the inflationary epoch preceded the formation of, not just protons and neutrons, but also of electrons.

 

[bapowell]

If you have inflation, then when it ends and the universe reheats, you populate the universe with all relativistic species, both matter and gauge fields. Reheating after inflation is what we would normally call "hot big bang", and so both fields would exist at this early time. If we speculate earlier than this, as in, what created the inflaton, then I suppose it's possible that the inflaton was created and nothing else, but I can also imagine a standard big bang initial universe that creates everything plus inflaton, inflation happens, and viola.

 

[DaveC426913]

If you have inflation, then when it ends and the universe reheats, you populate the universe with all relativistic species, both matter and gauge fields. Reheating after inflation is what we would normally call "hot big bang", and so both fields would exist at this early time. If we speculate earlier than this, as in, what created the inflaton, then I suppose it's possible that the inflaton was created and nothing else, but I can also imagine a standard big bang initial universe that creates everything plus inflaton, inflation happens, and viola.

OK, well I'm not sure if that's addressing me or something else.

Unless I misunderstand, the generally-accepted sequence of events is: inflation then creation of electrons then creation of protons and neutrons (sans a bunch of intervening steps).

The upshot is: there was no matter or antimatter before inflation, so their mutual annilhation could not be the cause for inflation.

 

[bapowell]

Right. The end of inflation is just the standard hot big bang. The thermal history of the universe begins at this time. I think we are in agreement here. I doubt think the OP was worrying about inflation -- he was just thinking standard expansion history, in which case, matter is there right at the beginning (at the end of inflation).

However, we don't know anything about what happened before inflation. Why do you suggest that there wasn't matter/antimatter? I think the OP was suggesting that the annihilation produced the big bang -- a bunch of energy gets released and drives the initial expansion. But you are absolutely right...you don't get inflation from radiation.

 

[friend]

However, we don't know anything about what happened before inflation. Why do you suggest that there wasn't matter/antimatter? I think the OP was suggesting that the annihilation produced the big bang -- a bunch of energy gets released and drives the initial expansion. But you are absolutely right...you don't get inflation from radiation.

As I understand it, particles are represented in QFT by waves in flat space. So in curved spacetime, particles are not well defined. But every point locally is flat even in curved space. So I wonder if particles come into and out of existence as space curvature changes or as space expands. This would mean that particles share energy with spacetime, or that spacetime is just another type of particle interacting with rest of the particle zoo.

In that case, you can't say which came first because one is the alternate form of the other. So it might be legitimate to say that particle interactions with spacetime drove inflation. It might be that the curvature of space contains a form of potentional energy. This energy is converted back and forth between particles which quickly convert back into curvature. But as these virtual particle live longer and longer, they interact with each other, lose energy and are not so easily converted into curved spacetime. The result would be that space expands and becomes flat. This is a mechanism for particles to drive inflation.

 

[bapowell]

As I understand it, particles are represented in QFT by waves in flat space. So in curved spacetime, particles are not well defined. But every point locally is flat even in curved space. So I wonder if particles come into and out of existence as space curvature changes or as space expands. This would mean that particles share energy with spacetime, or that spacetime is just another type of particle interacting with rest of the particle zoo.

This is pretty accurate. In curved space, you are right that there is no longer a unique plane wave solution in general. The key scales which determine whether the particle concept is valid are: 1) the curvature scale of the space and 2) the Compton wavelength of the particle. When the Compton wavelength of the particle becomes larger than the curvature radius, the vacuum state of that particle becomes a multiparticle state -- particles are created. As you are probably aware, a concrete example of such 'curvature induced' particle creation is Hawking radiation. Here, particles are generated from the vacuum (recall the quantum vacuum has nonzero energy) and due to the existence of the event horizon of the black hole, 'part' of this energy is radiated away. In turn, the black hole shrinks a little. So, in a sense, there is an exchange of energy between curvature and particles.

In that case, you can't say which came first because one is the alternate form of the other.

This I don't quite understand. We can of course differentiate between energy stored in particles and energy stored in curvature on scales smaller than the curvature radius. In any case, energy (particles) produced by the gravitational field (such as in the Hawking effect) is tiny in comparison to 'legitimate' matter -- the stuff created by the big bang. More on this in a moment...

So it might be legitimate to say that particle interactions with spacetime drove inflation.

Perhaps. In order to get inflation, one must have a gravitational source with a negative pressure. Vacuum energy has this property, and is currently a popular way to implement inflation. However, actual particles (radiation or dust) do not cause inflationary expansion.

It might be that the curvature of space contains a form of potentional energy. This energy is converted back and forth between particles which quickly convert back into curvature. But as these virtual particle live longer and longer, they interact with each other, lose energy and are not so easily converted into curved spacetime. The result would be that space expands and becomes flat. This is a mechanism for particles to drive inflation.

This seems interesting but speculative. We have a good understanding of how to implement inflation using vacuum energy. This is a finite contribution to the stress energy tensor (source of gravity). During inflation, the curvature scale is set by the Hubble radius. Particle with wavelengths surpassing the Hubble radius are produced during inflation (in current literature, the term 'perturbation' is used in lieu of particle). These perturbations are exactly that -- perturbations -- in the sense that they are higher order contributions to the curvature (at lowest order, they don't couple at all -- and so they can't source curvature). The perturbations that are generated during inflation (which is driven by some nonperturbative source, like the vacuum energy discussed above), while they don't participate in driving inflation, they do have very important consequences for the later formation of structure in the universe.

 

[apeiron]

In that case, you can't say which came first because one is the alternate form of the other. So it might be legitimate to say that particle interactions with spacetime drove inflation. It might be that the curvature of space contains a form of potentional energy. This energy is converted back and forth between particles which quickly convert back into curvature. But as these virtual particle live longer and longer, they interact with each other, lose energy and are not so easily converted into curved spacetime. The result would be that space expands and becomes flat. This is a mechanism for particles to drive inflation.

I certainly agree with this way of thinking. It is in fact exactly the kind of phase transition, local~global interaction, approach that I mentioned earlier when talking about vagueness as a model of initial conditions.

The symmetry in vagueness is a symmetry between atom and void, event and context, particle and field - local and global scale is all mixed in together and so "something" only vaguely exists. A self-organising system (like perhaps a universe) is a product of an interaction between bottom-up constructive actions and top-down constraints. And both are dissolved back into each other indistinguishably at the beginning of things.

Then as you say, the phase transition happens as local and global strike an asymmetry (via some fluctuation in the "field" of pure potential) and push against each other in some way.

So that is the general mechanism - and it is familiar from ising models of self-organisation, dipoles lining up in bar magnets, the phase transition of a scalar inflaton field even.

Now to the details of a model. My way of looking at it is to treat both virtual particles and vacuum as geometry - positive and negative forms of curvature. So the global curvature of the vacuum is hyperspheric - continuous or globally connected. This applies a top-down tension. A flattening force so to speak. The local curvature (that represented by virtual particles) would be instead hyperbolic. So at every point, there would instead be an attempt to diverge. Which would fuel an expansion.

As you say, the initial fluctuation would be hot and small, so both the local divergence and the global constraint would be very strong. Expansion would be swift - and also automatically flat, so no actual need for a separate inflation phase involving an inflaton field it would seem. Then as the system expands, both local divergence and global constraint would cool and weaken. At heat death, the universe would still be pushing and pulling on itself in bootstrap fashion, but it would now be a vanishingly weak interaction (here I like the Lineweaver/Davies model of residual blackbody radiation in a de sitter universe).

Of course, dark energy would have to be fitted into this model as a further factor. Though it could just be a measure of QM uncertainty in the expansion mechanism I suspect.

To sum up, the universe would bootstrap from two species of curvature in interaction - local hyperbolic divergence and globally flattening hyperspheric action. This is not a story that involves massive actual particles or gravity fields as yet, just raw global space and its equally raw "virtual particle" locations. When these two competing curvatures are still the same scale, they are in a state of vagueness or unbroken symmetry. And "hot" because they are in a state of maximum potential. Then as the symmetry breaks, together they dissipate their complementary positive and negative tensions to create a large flat and cold void. Inflationary events are not needed because this is a self-flatttening mechanism. It could be said that the universe is a phase transition, and we are observing that transition still going on from the inside.

 

[bapowell]

Of course, dark energy would have to be fitted into this model as a further factor. Though it could just be a measure of QM uncertainty in the expansion mechanism I suspect.

Of course, you need a model first. If what you are saying somehow fits into general relativity or some other accepted gravity theory, then you'd do well to utilize such a theory to substantiate the claims you are making here. I have a hard time seeing how much of any of what you say fits into any accepted theory. If you are attempting to strike out in a new direction, I caution you to read the forum rules about overly speculative posts.

 

[apeiron]

Of course, you need a model first. If what you are saying somehow fits into general relativity or some other accepted gravity theory, then you'd do well to utilize such a theory to substantiate the claims you are making here. I have a hard time seeing how much of any of what you say fits into any accepted theory. If you are attempting to strike out in a new direction, I caution you to read the forum rules about overly speculative posts.

Agreed, but which model comes first - the physics or the metaphysics?

However, yes, it is sound practice to take existing workable physics models and generalise from that sound basis. That is, relax their inherent constraints to achieve higher symmetry solutions. Which was, for example, how physics went from Newton to Einstein. And the next step now is to generalise in some fashion that "unites" GR and QM (and thermodynamics too!).

But what I am talking about here now is a specific method of generalisation. So it is not contra known physics but a systematic approach to generalisation that leads to more symmetric outcomes.

The big metaphysical difference in the line I'm taking is that a logic of vagueness seeks to generalise both the local and global scale of action. Standard reductionist logic seeks only to generalise the local scale because it views all causality as being micro-physics - events, particles, atoms. The global scale is traditionally treated as "the void", the big fat nothing which is an a-causal stage or backdrop. The global scale has no action and therefore can be left out of physical models as a factor to be generalised.

Of course this is a convenient fiction. Global causality intrudes even into microphysics-based descriptions of reality. In QM, you have nonlocality. GR is a holistic view in which spacetime (location and change) are an active constraint (the backdrop is fully dynamic and has the speed of light as a global limit on interaction). Even generally speaking, we consider the laws of physics to be a constraint on local action that exists "everywhere at all times".

So global causality is there in conventional models. But not explicitly as part of the fabric of the models.

A condensed matter physics approach to modelling is more used to explicitly representing global constraints. This is why solitions, spin networks, phase transitions, self-organising criticality and such-like are proving so useful in thinking about the fundamental issues of cosmology and physics.

So you have acceptance of a general program - physics moves backwards to the fundamental by the successive relaxation of constraints found in its current models. By achieving higher states of symmetry in its modelling.

And you also have domains of science with experience at granting causality to both the local and the global scale of a system. Domains where it is quite "logical" to speak of top-down constraint as well as bottom-up construction. Concrete models exist.

I am then linking these two things to the third thing which is the metaphysical tradition of logic based on the notion of vague beginnings, as opposed to crisp beginnings. This offers a way to fold both local and global scales of a system into an actual higher state of symmetry. Again, plenty of hard technical data here.

Even the actual suggestion that all can be modeled as pure curvature - both the local and global scales of existence - is in the spirit of Wheeler's classic pregeometry and geometrodynamics.

The difference again is that pre-geometry took the little atomistic fragments of spacetime to exist crisply first, then they became knit together to form a continuous flat spacetime vacuum. The vagueness approach treats all geometrical possibility as a QM foam which self-organises into its "atoms and void". You have the large and the small all mixed up as one (one higher symmetry state) at the beginning of things.

It is interesting that the likes of Smolin and Rovelli are beginning to namecheck CS Peirce and Anaximander - the two key thinkers when it comes to vagueness-based logic. So it is all stuff at least on the edge of the current radar. I just happened to have studied it in detail because of its application in systems science and neuroscience.

 

[apeiron]

If you are attempting to strike out in a new direction, I caution you to read the forum rules about overly speculative posts.

Sorry, if you just meant the bit about dark energy was speculative rather than my whole post () then I agree.

The position I was arguing would make inflation seem an unnecessary extra as we are talking about a basically self-flattening cosmological mechanism.

Dark energy also seems perhaps an unnecessary extra to a self-flattening mechanism. However, there is reasonable evidence that dark energy exists. And therefore, speculatively, I would not be surprised if a self-flattening universe (acting via top-down constraint to decohere its locales) hit a plankscale resolution issue. There would be an ineradicable degree of QM uncertainty or "geometric creep" in the flattening.

It would seem that this should be something that could be modeled in detail, and predictions made of the actual scale of the creep. But it is not really my field and I think I am safe to presume that any idea this obvious has already been explored anyway.

 

[yoda jedi]

Who cares? What does this have to do with the thread. Physics is an empirical science. Last I checked, philosophy is not.

define nothing...

 

[bapowell]

define nothing...

Why? Your post "from nothing -> NOTHING" has nothing to do with this thread (it does relate to the title of the thread, but if you read through it you'll find that it's not even remotely a theme). This is a physics forum. "from nothing -> NOTHING" is not physics. It's not a physicist's job to define "nothing". It's a philosopher's.

 

[yoda jedi]

Why? Your post "from nothing -> NOTHING" has nothing to do with this thread (it does relate to the title of the thread, but if you read through it you'll find that it's not even remotely a theme). This is a physics forum. "from nothing -> NOTHING" is not physics. It's not a physicist's job to define "nothing". It's a philosopher's.

you have to read carefully...
Mr. Smart Aleck... ...lol...


Read

It sounds like the standard idea that the material to start the big bang arose as a quantum fluctuation out of "nothing".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tryon

Of course, quantum fluctuations would seem to have to arise out of some framework of existence. So not exactly nothing.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

you have to read carefully...
Mr. Smart Aleck... ...lol...


Read

I'm confused, it seems like you are saying that from nothing there can be nothing. Nothing is an infinity, and how do you grasp this? Nothing is an unimaginable as infinite something, so which is more absurd to our minds? Something from something that has always been there, or something from nothing that was previously there. They are both inconceivable, and so intuiting it seems awry. The math is the way here, and knowing when we have become philosophers.

 

[bapowell]

you have to read carefully...
Mr. Smart Aleck... ...lol...

Whoops. You got me. By all means, carry on.

 

[yoda jedi]

I'm confused, it seems like you are saying that from nothing there can be nothing. Nothing is an infinity, and how do you grasp this? Nothing is an unimaginable as infinite something, so which is more absurd to our minds? Something from something that has always been there, or something from nothing that was previously there. They are both inconceivable, and so intuiting it seems awry. The math is the way here, and knowing when we have become philosophers.

nothing is the absolute vacuum.
In any case you can grasp or comprehend the concept of infinity, see for example the work of Georg Cantor, Cantor's discovered that there is not just one infinity, but a never-ending hierarchy, each infinitely bigger than the last, he gave a detailed analysis of infinity.

I'm confused, it seems like you are saying that from nothing there can be nothing.

no way.
from nothing, nothing, nada.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

nothing is the absolute vacuum.
In any case you can grasp or comprehend the concept of infinity, see for example the work of Georg Cantor, Cantor's discovered that there is not just one infinity, but a never-ending hierarchy, each infinitely bigger than the last, he gave a detailed analysis of infinity.





no way.
from nothing, nothing, nada.

Can you link me to this work by Georg Cantor? I cannot seem to find it, but it sounds like it is worth the reading.

 

[bapowell]

Can you link me to this work by Georg Cantor? I cannot seem to find it, but it sounds like it is worth the reading.

Cantor was a pioneer of set theory. He developed several concepts, such as the cardinality (roughly the size) of sets. He developed the ideas of 'countable' vs. 'uncountable' infinity. As a quick taste, consider the integers and the real numbers. Even though there are an infinite number of elements in each set, there are infinitely more reals than integers. This should be pretty obvious -- you can fit an infinite number of real numbers between the the two integers 0 and 1. His work on infinity has not been free of criticism, however, as some mathematicians believe that it is sensible to compare two infinities. Also look up the Cantor Set.

 

[apeiron]

nothing is the absolute vacuum.

A vacuum is still a something, no matter how "absolute". It has global properties like a temperature and a dimensional structure. So what are you trying to say here? Your point is unclear to me.

 

[friend]

This is pretty accurate. In curved space, you are right that there is no longer a unique plane wave solution in general. The key scales which determine whether the particle concept is valid are: 1) the curvature scale of the space and 2) the Compton wavelength of the particle. When the Compton wavelength of the particle becomes larger than the curvature radius, the vacuum state of that particle becomes a multiparticle state -- particles are created.

Do you mean that the changing frequency of the wave packet of a single particle in curved spacetime becomes a sum of various constant frequences/particles locally?

"curvature radius"? pick one please. The radius is reciprocal to the curvature. Do you mean when the Compton wavelength becomes larger than the curvature of the surrounding space they form particles? When the curvature is greater than the Compton wavelength, is this where low energy, high wavelength particles stop interfering with anything (become unobservable), but where high energy, small wavelength particles do interacte with each other? Did I say that right?

 

[yoda jedi]

A vacuum is still a something, no matter how "absolute". It has global properties like a temperature and a dimensional structure. So what are you trying to say here? Your point is unclear to me.

you are talking about the true vacuum, the vacuum of quantun mechanics (quantum fluctuations, quantum harmonic oscillators, etc), i am talking about ideal emptiness, a state that not exist physically.

 

[yoda jedi]

Can you link me to this work by Georg Cantor? I cannot seem to find it, but it sounds like it is worth the reading.

http://www.math.vanderbilt.edu/~schectex/courses/infinity.pdf
Georg Cantor (1845-1918):
The man who tamed infinity.

"Eventually Cantor’s ideas won out and became part of mainstream mathematics.
David Hilbert, the greatest mathematician of the early 20th century, said in 1926 that

“No one can expel us from the
paradise Cantor has created.”




--------------------
http://www.archive.org/stream/contributionstot003626mbp#page/n1/mode/2up




-------------

 

[IcedEcliptic]

http://www.math.vanderbilt.edu/~schectex/courses/infinity.pdf
Georg Cantor (1845-1918):
The man who tamed infinity.

"Eventually Cantor’s ideas won out and became part of mainstream mathematics.
David Hilbert, the greatest mathematician of the early 20th century, said in 1926 that

“No one can expel us from the
paradise Cantor has created.”




--------------------
http://www.archive.org/stream/contributionstot003626mbp#page/n1/mode/2up




-------------

Ahhh, thank you very much!

 

[apeiron]

you are talking about the true vacuum, the vacuum of quantun mechanics (quantum fluctuations, quantum harmonic oscillators, etc), i am talking about ideal emptiness, a state that not exist physically.

But how is an "ideal emptiness" not still a crisply global something - a container or context of some kind? There may be nothing at every location, but the empty set still has the global structure of a set.

That is why we need a philosophical way to subtract away the global aspects of somethingness as well. Otherwise we are not able to ask meaningful questions about "something out of nothing".

 

[yoda jedi]

But how is an "ideal emptiness" not still a crisply global something - a container or context of some kind? There may be nothing at every location,

Which locations ?

 

[apeiron]

Which locations ?

The ones that are empty of course. The challenge for you here is to find ways of expressing what you want to say that doesn't invoke the necessity of something as a reference frame. So empty does not actually mean nothing in toto, just nothing at an array of possible locations.

This is why vagueness is a step further to actually no-things. Even the array of possible locations becomes dissolved. Is the reference frame empty? Is the reference frame even there? If the answer is vague, then that is about as minimal a state as we can imagine. To say there is a definite state of nothingness is already more concrete than to say well even the fact of nothingness is a vague one.

 

[bapowell]

you are talking about the true vacuum, the vacuum of quantun mechanics (quantum fluctuations, quantum harmonic oscillators, etc), i am talking about ideal emptiness, a state that not exist physically.

Why can't such a state exist physically? You've given no reason for this. A supersymmetric quantum vacuum has zero energy.

 

[yoda jedi]

The ones that are empty of course.

Tautological.










------------------------------
locations refers to where.
------------------------------

where are the locations that you refer.

 

[yoda jedi]

Why can't such a state exist physically? You've given no reason for this. A supersymmetric quantum vacuum has zero energy.

Quantum Vacuum State is not the nothing.



"According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space", and again: "it is a mistake to think of any physical vacuum as some absolutely empty void." According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence."

 

[bapowell]

wrong, quantum vacuum is not a zero energy state.




"According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space", and again: "it is a mistake to think of any physical vacuum as some absolutely empty void." According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence."

Wow. You're not listening. Do you know what a supersymmetric vacuum is?

 

[yoda jedi]

Wow. You're not listening. Do you know what a supersymmetric vacuum is?

re-read, is not the nothing.

 

[bapowell]

OK, so you don't know what a supersymmetric vacuum is. But, naturally, you are fully qualified to determine that "Quantum Vacuum State is not the nothing", whatever that means. Also, if you're going to edit a previous post, it's best to keep track of what you're editing. While doubtful that anybody will be following this thread (because it's pretty nonsensical and useless) it makes it easier to follow if the posts to which people are responding aren't changed after the fact.

 

[apeiron]

Wow. You're not listening. Do you know what a supersymmetric vacuum is?

Can you explain how a supersymmetric vacuum is actually not still a something? It seems to be a scalar field of energy in suspension at least.

That energy must come from somewhere and exist in some realm. It represents a dimensionality of being.

And what are the rules about the fluctuations that can spontaneously break its symmetry. How large is this vacuum and in how many places at how many times can it be broken?