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Pancras
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It looks like physicists are attempting to reach into a field where they have no competency.
How can mathematics inform you of anything that happened in the past, when there were no witnesses to the events about which the speculation ensues? Did mathematics exist before this proverbial ‘big bang’? If so, how could we know that? Does mathematics inform us of the existence of mathematics? Did the calculus exist before Isaac Newton? Did the cartesian plane exist before Rene Descartes was born? Can we answer these questions with any degree of confidence, and, if not, how could we then presume to answer questions about what happened “billions of years ago?” Was there a point in time beyond which there was no time, that is, did time itself have a beginning? Can mathematics answer that question too? In courts of law the term “beginning of time” is acceptable as a reality. Are they just making that up?
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How can mathematics inform you of anything that happened in the past, when there were no witnesses to the events about which the speculation ensues? Did mathematics exist before this proverbial ‘big bang’? If so, how could we know that? Does mathematics inform us of the existence of mathematics? Did the calculus exist before Isaac Newton? Did the cartesian plane exist before Rene Descartes was born? Can we answer these questions with any degree of confidence, and, if not, how could we then presume to answer questions about what happened “billions of years ago?” Was there a point in time beyond which there was no time, that is, did time itself have a beginning? Can mathematics answer that question too? In courts of law the term “beginning of time” is acceptable as a reality. Are they just making that up?
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Bob_Crowley
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Why does everything behave in ways that can be explained mathematically?
That is, in a logical, explicable fashion?
That is, in a logical, explicable fashion?
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Layp3rs0n
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This article still begs the question, why ARE there quantum fluctuations instead of no quantum fluctuations. You still have a set of physical laws. LAWS. Why are there laws instead of no laws. Well, Obviously from a Lawgiver.
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DrTaffy
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I would say that physicists have far more competency to answer questions about the beginning of the universe than theologians.
If you see a ball rolling down a hill, halfway down the hill and still accelerating, can mathematics not give you a good idea of what probably happened in the past before you first saw the ball, by extrapolation? If not, what do you do - just shrug and assume that the ball was created ex nihilo a fraction of a second before you saw it by the invisible rolling ball pixie?
Are you talking about the description or formalisation of mathematics/calculus/cartesian planes? If so, that only existed once someone described it.
However the reality described by those things existed all along. Do you disagree?
By reasoned deduction from the evidence. How else?
In what sense is the phrase “beginning of time” accepted as a ‘reality’ in courts of law?
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Pat_Albertson
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Neither, since I was an atheist for many years. My faith, such as it is, comes more from subjective considerations than objective ones, to wit, from the effects of prayer upon myself.
The article does not appear to be saying anything new, since the idea that nothingness is unstable has been around for decades now.
Although I haven’t done so, since I have not found the time, I have been wanting to play with the idea of the expansion and contraction of a de Sitter universe (one of the simpler but yet supposedly realistic sorts of models of the universe) for some time now, and that would include the idea of taking it back down to nothing or near nothing. Even if I could trace it back down to a regular singularity (as opposed to an irregular one), it still wouldn’t do anything to my thoughts about the ultimate nature of reality. My questions run deeper than that.
I’m pretty sure that there are priests (probably nuns too for that matter) working in cosmology who hold views similar to mine who have already ‘been there and done that’.
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Linusthe2nd
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Doen’t bother me at all. Because scientists have not and cannot prove the universe created itself. Nothing in the universe caused itself and the universe did not cause itself, we know that positively form Divine Revelation and the Doctrine of the Catholic Church.
By the way this video and many like it are nothing but wild speculation. " Nothing " means no being, no anything, no waves, no particles, no energy, no laws. absolutely zero. From absolutely nothing, something cannot come, except by the power of God. These people are preaching to the gullible and the gullible will loose their faith. It would be better if you just ignored them and concentrate on doing what God wants you to do.
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Linusthe2nd
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Hey Dr. if God didn’t create the universe, then it wouldn’t exist. Seems rather wild speculation that the universe created itself or that its is responsible for its own existence.I would say that physicists have far more competency to answer questions about the beginning of the universe than theologians.
If you see a ball rolling down a hill, halfway down the hill and still accelerating, can mathematics not give you a good idea of what probably happened in the past before you first saw the ball, by extrapolation? If not, what do you do - just shrug and assume that the ball was created ex nihilo a fraction of a second before you saw it by the invisible rolling ball pixie?
Are you talking about the description or formalisation of mathematics/calculus/cartesian planes? If so, that only existed once someone described it.
However the reality described by those things existed all along. Do you disagree?
By reasoned deduction from the evidence. How else?
In what sense is the phrase “beginning of time” accepted as a ‘reality’ in courts of law?
You need to refresh your mind by devoting some serious time to Thomas Aquinas or even the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
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Bahman
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Nothingness is not stable but absolutely unstable so you should question absolute existence. Is there anything absolutely exist.
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Pat_Albertson
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I just wanted to be sure I understood what the article was about before I responded to your post, so I went back and read it more carefully. I’m going to say something about the article, but before I do that I just wanted to say that I don’t think the article was about absolute existence, but that it was about the universe, which, translated into more technical jargon, means that it was about the origin of the manifold we are on.
I’m not at all sure if absolute existence has any place in either Einstein’s field equations or quantum field theory. Is it part of the Wheeler-Dewitt equation? I don’t know.
Now on to the article and what I saw that I didn’t like:
That’s not quite correct. In certain energy states, Bohm’s theory predicts that the negatively charged electron in a hydrogen atom is just hanging there in space, standing still, not moving at all, and not very far from the positively charged proton which constitutes the nucleus.
I didn’t care for that when I read it years ago, and a lot of other people didn’t like it either, so if the new theory depends on Bohm, then I think I’ll pass.
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Aloysium
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Basically they are saying that the universe appeared as a result of spontaneous quantum fluctuations and that they have an equation proving this. For this to be the case, there has to be something happening in nature to which a mathematical equation relates, a behaviour that the formula describes. Something must be in existence; how it is there, they can’t say.
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Pat_Albertson
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Yes, and they are also saying that their theory depends on pilot waves, so as far as I’m concerned they might as well forget it.
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Faith1960
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Why is that?Yes, and they are also saying that their theory depends on pilot waves, so as far as I’m concerned they might as well forget it.
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Counterpoint
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Aloysium
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If you think that there is mathematical proof that the universe could have formed spontaneously from nothing, I will gladly listen.
I am telling you that what they write and describe does not back their claim.
If you have difficulty understanding all this, you have to make a decision as to whom you will trust.
I would forget about it all personally, as I do with economics.
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Pat_Albertson
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Pilot waves, the implicate order, Bohm’s theories, etc. all end up predicting that electrons just sit still near the nucleus of the hydrogen atom in certain low energy states, the evidence for which is entirely lacking. There are many other theories which also purport to do away with the collapse of the wave function, wave-particle duality, etc., and they do it without something so improbable as that which I just described.
Bohm wrote an OK introductory textbook on quantum mechanics, which I liked and occasionally refer to, and I even kind of liked his treacle model of quantum particles and the implicate order, but, as I said, I found his model of the hydrogen atom implausible to say the least.
If memory serves, I read about most of this in a book titled The Infamous Boundary: Seven Decades of Heresy in Quantum Physics by David Wick. I’ve got a copy in a box around here somewhere, but most of my books are still in boxes from my move. Here it is at Amazon.
I’ve worked lots of problems in elementary quantum mechanics, but I don’t do field theory (although I wish I could) nor do I spend any effort on other sorts of effort such as the above. The only way to get a good feel for what’s good and what isn’t is to work problems.
If Bohm’s theories were any good, people would be using them and teaching them all of the time instead of sticking to conventional theories. I think he came up with most of his stuff in the '50s and '60s, so it isn’t like there hasn’t been time yet to adopt them. One of the things he wanted to do, and what his theories were intended to do, was move back from probability to determinism. That hasn’t happened either. Probabilistic quantum wave functions as quantum representations are still very much with us.
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Hans_W
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Lots of opinions have been voiced on this thread already. I couldn’t chip in earlier because I didn’t get a ‘reply’ button yesterday.
The physicist Lawrence Krauss is one of the champions of this ‘universe out of nothing’ idea. He lines out the position fairly well on a couple of YouTube videos. You can also find a lot of his discussions with theologians.
Lawrence Krauss is an atheist and, like Richard Dawkins, is keen on presenting science as a proof that there is no God. So you need to be careful when you listen to those people. But as long as they stick to science, you can learn a lot from them.
Ultimately, it comes down to faith. You need to believe. Don’t look for a scientific proof for God’s existence, otherwise you’ll fall into the God-of-the-gaps fallacy: science can suddenly explain something which was unexplainable yesterday, therefore God doesn’t exist.
One thing we have learned over the last 400 years: we can’t rely on common sense when explaining nature, especially when it comes to the very small and the very large. Who would have thought that the computer monitor you are looking at is 99% empty space. Who would have thought that light is a wave and a particle. We can’t even imagine that. When scientists speculate about what happened ‘before’ the Big Bang, we should at least listen with an open mind.
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Aloysium
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We obviously have different definitions as to what constitutes open space.
The monitor I see as a matrix of electrochemical forces preventing those that constitute my hand from going through it. That’s not open space - it is very much filled. I’m not a sub-atomic particle, uninfluenced by these bonds/forces.
“Waves” and “particles” are how we conceptualize the behaviour of matter. They are parts of a model that we use to describe what happens when we manipulate things that are very, very, very small. I’m actually not surprised, having noticed that things are different as they get smaller. I can’t even come close to relatively being able to carry what an ant does.
“What happened before the big bang”, would have happened before zero time. Unless some other over-reaching space-time frame is discovered, it would be impossible to say what existed when nothing existed. I’ll wait for that.
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Linusthe2nd
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I don’t pay much attention to them except to try and help people on these forums. I know they are wrong for two reason. First and foremost, they are teaching things contrary to Divine Revelation and the Catholic Faith and I know God does not lie. And secondly, their speculations are groosly illogical. And I will add that Thomas Aquinas demonstrates that God does indeed exist.
Linus2nd
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Hans_W
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I didn’t say ‘open space’ but empty space. You could squeeze the earth into the size of a suitcase if you push the electrons into the nuclei and make a lump of neutrons. That’s what I meant.
By ‘small things’ I mean the subatomic world.
There are various physical hypotheses on the origin of the Big Bang. There could be an infinite number of universes. All speculation for the time being. Perhaps we’ll never find out. There is still so much to learn.
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