BIG BANG

I just read about this new(?) theory about the "end of the universe". This "false vacuum" theory says everything will be destroyed instantaneously without any forewarning. My guess is it will happen the day before I am eligible to collect Social Security retirement benefits.

"In order to best understand the false vacuum collapse theory, one must first understand the Higgs field which permeates the universe. Much like an electromagnetic field it varies in strength, based upon its potential. A true vacuum exists so long as the universe exists in its lowest energy state, in which case the false vacuum theory is irrelevant. However, if the vacuum is not in its lowest energy state (a false vacuum), it could tunnel into a lower energy state.^[18] This is called the vacuum metastability event. This has the potential to fundamentally alter our universe; in more audacious scenarios even the various physical constants could have different values, severely affecting the foundations of matter, energy, and spacetime. It is also possible that all structures will be destroyed instantaneously, without any forewarning.^[19] Studies of a particle similar to the Higgs boson support the theory of a false vacuum collapse billions of years from now.^[20]"

It Is Energy, isn't it -which cannot be created or destroyed?! It possibly has two phases - 'still' where all become singular (an oxymoron here as it is inherently unstable) and 'transient' a result of all' being unable to contain itself. So 'all'  is in a rhythmic phenomena in an eternal cycle between its two states! Everything we 'observe, feel, imagine' is in the transient phase, i.e.  a transformation: big bang, space, time, matter, us, all in a statistical splurge- but ultimately in a cycle back to 'still' which I believe  we inherently imagine/feel as  bliss/peace, but wait a cosmic period and (kaboom) a new manifestation!

That's philosophy rather than science.

If you want a relevant counter argument, try the second law of thermodynamics which, given the increasing expansion of our universe, inexorably leads to the the heat death of the universe.  The energy isn't destroyed, just spread out completely evenly, so that there is no driver for energy to flow from energy dense regions to energy poor regions.

Thermodynamics only applies to the realm of 'transient' energy. Science is not the universe, just an observation of,  from a very limited perspective (us) within its own transition.

Brilliant,

Could you define Still and Transient energy please. I'm unfamiliar with the terms.

thank you.

s.

Still energy has no meaning.  If energy can't move it can't exert an effect.  The way energy becomes still is to become spread out evenly, then the driver that powers everything simply stops operating - i.e. the heat death of the universe.  Game over - no reset, and no more coins to put in the machine!

Within the realms of space, time, energy and matter, science is knowledge; limited as it is it's all that what we have that has meaning.
Philosophy has meaning only in the realm of abstract thought.

Having said that I do accept the significance of the principle of general semantics - the map is not the territory.  However if you're stuck in a permanent fog, the map is the only thing that might save you.

I used quotation marks on 'still' and called it an oxymoron above and Huge's comment that it is philosophy rather than science is valid. But philosophy and science are both observations and do not have to be opposed. If energy cannot be created nor destroyed and we observe it in an expanding universe (i.e. in transition) then what is the point zero, where expansion begins? I am calling that 'still' rightly or wrongly.

Yep.

my rather rudimentary understanding is that energy endows the ability to do work. Without energy nothing can be done. Energy is not a thing. It is not an object. It is one property of an object. Energy can be stored. Energy can be transferred from one place to another. Energy can be transformed from one form to another. 

For anything to move energy must at least be transferred. This infers that there has to be a difference in energy levels for things to happen.

I couldn't initially get my head around 'still' energy. 'Transient' energy is even trickier for me. If you can't create or destroy energy how can it be transient? 

I enjoy things that challenge my lack of understanding hence I would like some definitions of these terms.

s.

Kevin Richardson posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

"That pivotal moment of being"

Big Bang, or no Big Bang, did that "singularity" always exist (as matter, or energy or whatever). Or did it emerge from absolute nothingness (zilch !). Or is there some other option.

And if necessary, replace "singularity" with something bigger or smaller.

Since time started post singularity, the words "always" and "exist" are meaningless at the singularity. Always = at all times. Exist = having objective reality or being. In the context of our universe the singularity probably never existed and would not be considered part of objective reality. Our language is not well equipped to communicate ideas requiring the complete absence of space and time. [Nobody really knows what happened before plank time (10E-43 seconds (?))] Certainly "time" did not exist until after gravity broke free from the "super force" at which point the singularity does not exist.

So...yeah.... singularity never existed but still somehow provided all the energy and laws of physics that rule our universe.

Now my question for my Christian friends. If God always existed and he created the universe, why did he wait so long? I mean the universe is only 13.8 billion years old. According to some "expansionist" theories, the universe will grow for like 10 ^ 200 years before everything is broken down into quarks and radiation.

Personally.... I can not believe that "everything" came from "nothing". The only explanation that makes sense is that our universe was created by another universe. This parent universe would likely have very different physics. It is possible that there are an infinite generations of universes and some of them may have a reality where something can be made from nothing.

You are right about our language not being well enough equipped to communicate ideas. Especially, for example, regarding ideas about a singularity, what preceded our universe, or co-exists outside our universe. Whether "everything" came from "nothing" or "everything" has "always" existed.

But quite separately from the limitations of our language, are the limitations of our imagination and our science.

We know that we don't know all the laws of our universe, But we don't know how much of the laws we do know.

And as for any notion of the laws outside our universe, we know nothing. But we can speculate.

Don Atkinson posted:

We know that we don't know all the laws of our universe, But we don't know how much of the laws we do know.

You're not wrong. But there are people don’t acknowledge this.

Link below is a review of the book “The Higgs Fake: How Particle Physicists Fooled the Nobel Committee”

I don’t know whether the claims made in the book are accurate, I don’t know if the claims in the review are accurate, but I do agree with the sentiments discussed in the book and comments by people who’ve read the book at the end of the review.

 http://cosmologyscience.com/co...the-nobel-committee/

That link seems to be of the same ilk as the ones that tell you how to lose 10kg of fat in a week, chat up supermodels in a bar or the secret of happiness.

not read a single line of the book so I'm happy to be proved wrong (I probably wouldn't understand it anyway) but the twaddle in the blurb and the reviews smell of hidden agenda.

Agree with the sentiments in the reviews?  Am I reading a different set of reviews?

One reviewer is promting their own book!

Another has the same level of insight that I possess and expresses m=f/a! A key stage three student could do that.

Not sure those reviews cause Mr Higgs or the empirical data any sleepless nights.

s.

Don Atkinson posted:

Kevin Richardson posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

"That pivotal moment of being"

Big Bang, or no Big Bang, did that "singularity" always exist (as matter, or energy or whatever). Or did it emerge from absolute nothingness (zilch !). Or is there some other option.

And if necessary, replace "singularity" with something bigger or smaller.

Since time started post singularity, the words "always" and "exist" are meaningless at the singularity. Always = at all times. Exist = having objective reality or being. In the context of our universe the singularity probably never existed and would not be considered part of objective reality. Our language is not well equipped to communicate ideas requiring the complete absence of space and time. [Nobody really knows what happened before plank time (10E-43 seconds (?))] Certainly "time" did not exist until after gravity broke free from the "super force" at which point the singularity does not exist.

So...yeah.... singularity never existed but still somehow provided all the energy and laws of physics that rule our universe.

Now my question for my Christian friends. If God always existed and he created the universe, why did he wait so long? I mean the universe is only 13.8 billion years old. According to some "expansionist" theories, the universe will grow for like 10 ^ 200 years before everything is broken down into quarks and radiation.

Personally.... I can not believe that "everything" came from "nothing". The only explanation that makes sense is that our universe was created by another universe. This parent universe would likely have very different physics. It is possible that there are an infinite generations of universes and some of them may have a reality where something can be made from nothing.

You are right about our language not being well enough equipped to communicate ideas. Especially, for example, regarding ideas about a singularity, what preceded our universe, or co-exists outside our universe. Whether "everything" came from "nothing" or "everything" has "always" existed.

But quite separately from the limitations of our language, are the limitations of our imagination and our science.

We know that we don't know all the laws of our universe, But we don't know how much of the laws we do know.

And as for any notion of the laws outside our universe, we know nothing. But we can speculate.

Of course linguists would argue that our language shapes our thought process & imagination. I suspect AI will ultimately have better abstract reasoning skills vs humans given AI not encumbered by "objective reality".  Even the idea of "nothingness" is [IMO] too abstract for our [or just my?] minds to conceive.

Kevin Richardson posted:

Of course linguists would argue that our language shapes our thought process & imagination. I suspect AI will ultimately have better abstract reasoning skills vs humans given AI not encumbered by "objective reality".  Even the idea of "nothingness" is [IMO] too abstract for our [or just my?] minds to conceive.

In that case the linguists would be guilty of self limiting their own thought patterns.

I think using a internal 3 or 4 (and very rarely 5) dimensional symbolic system and translate into English using the surface properties of the symbols.
I also have no problem with the multiplicity of different kinds of nothing as defined by Immanuel Kant.

Huge posted:

That's philosophy rather than science.

If you want a relevant counter argument, try the second law of thermodynamics which, given the increasing expansion of our universe, inexorably leads to the the heat death of the universe.  The energy isn't destroyed, just spread out completely evenly, so that there is no driver for energy to flow from energy dense regions to energy poor regions.

Or, as succinctly expressed by Flanders and Swann in their song First and Second Law:

"Heat is work and work's a curse

And all the heat in the Universe

Is gonna cooool down 'cos it can't increase

Then there'll be no more work and there'll be perfect peace.

Really?

Yeah - that's entropy, man!"

Roger

Huge posted:

nothing as defined by Immanuel Kant.

He knows nothing.

Huge posted:

Kevin Richardson posted:

Of course linguists would argue that our language shapes our thought process & imagination. I suspect AI will ultimately have better abstract reasoning skills vs humans given AI not encumbered by "objective reality".  Even the idea of "nothingness" is [IMO] too abstract for our [or just my?] minds to conceive.

In that case the linguists would be guilty of self limiting their own thought patterns.

I think using a internal 3 or 4 (and very rarely 5) dimensional symbolic system and translate into English using the surface properties of the symbols.
I also have no problem with the multiplicity of different kinds of nothing as defined by Immanuel Kant.

Don't say that name.... I had to study Critique of Pure Reason as a first year in college. My final paper on "that guy" was destroyed by a "computer virus". Of course this was in the 80's when most people (myself include) had no idea  such a thing existed. I told my professor that my computer had "become possessed or something". He was kind enough to give me a 24 hour extension but it totally screwed my finals week.

Honestly I remember next to nothing about Kant's philosophy. If he enumerated various "nothings" I'm at least sure he was "comprehensive".

If I recall correctly, Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable. I hope you managed to quote this undeniable fact in your dissertation somewhere - at least in the second iteration. 

fatcat posted:

Huge posted:

nothing as defined by Immanuel Kant.

He knows nothing.

If he comes from Barcelona, does he support independence for Catalonia.