Danger: Science
Ahead 😉
From the BigThink Blog: “When you combine
the Uncertainty Principle with Einstein's famous equation, you get a
mind-blowing result: Particles can come from nothing.”
Key Takeaways
- The concept of
"nothing" has been debated for millennia, by both scientists and
philosophers.
- Even if you took an empty
container devoid of all matter and cooled it to absolute zero, there is
still "something" in the container.
- That something is called quantum
foam, and it represents particles blinking into and out of existence.
The full BigThink article
link is here.
Oh, I love this
stuff. If you’d rather just get the gist
of it instead of wading through the entire article, I’ve copy/pasted the entire
article below with the more intriguing sentences highlighted by me. If you are not interested in the details, you
can scroll to the TL;DR mark. For the full
context, click on the article link above.
My OP questions will follow.
Option: Scroll down to the TL;DR
skip mark ↓
***
What is nothing? This is a question that has bothered philosophers
as far back as the ancient Greeks, where they debated the nature of the void.
They had long discussions trying to determine whether nothing is something.
It’s nothing, really
What would happen
if scientists took a container and removed all the air out of it,
creating an ideal vacuum that was entirely devoid of matter? The removal of
matter would mean that energy would remain. Much in the same way that
the energy from the Sun can cross to the Earth through empty space, heat from
outside the container would radiate into the container. Thus, the container
wouldn’t be truly empty.
However, what if
scientists also cooled the container to the lowest possible temperature
(absolute zero), so it radiated no energy at all? Furthermore, suppose that
scientists shielded the container so no outside energy or radiation could
penetrate it. Then there would be absolutely nothing inside the
container, right?
That’s where things
become counterintuitive. It turns out that nothing isn’t nothing.
The nature of “nothing”
The laws of quantum
mechanics are confusing, predicting that particles are also waves and
that cats are simultaneously alive and dead. However, one of the most confusing
of all quantum principles is called the Heisenberg
Uncertainty Principle, which is commonly explained as saying that you
cannot simultaneously perfectly measure the location and movement of a
subatomic particle. While that is a good representation of the principle,
it also says that you cannot measure the energy of anything perfectly and that
the shorter the time you measure, the worse your measurement is. Taken to the
extreme, if you try to make a measurement in near-zero time, your measurement
will be infinitely imprecise.
These quantum
principles have mind-bending consequences for anyone trying to understand the
nature of nothing. For example, if you try to measure the amount of energy at a
location — even if that energy is supposed to be nothing — you still cannot
measure zero precisely. Sometimes, when you make the measurement, the
expected zero turns out to be non-zero. And this isn’t just a measurement
problem; it’s a feature of reality. For short periods of time, zero
is not always zero.
When you combine
this bizarre fact (that zero expected energy can be non-zero, if you examine a
short enough time period) with Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2,
there is an even more bizarre consequence. Einstein’s equation says that
energy is matter and vice versa. Combined with quantum theory, this means
that in a location that is supposedly entirely empty and devoid of energy,
space can briefly fluctuate to non-zero energy — and that temporary energy can
make matter (and antimatter) particles.
Quantum foam
Thus, at the tiny
quantum level, empty space isn’t empty. It’s actually a vibrant place, with tiny subatomic particles
appearing and disappearing in wanton abandon. This appearance and disappearance
has some superficial resemblance to the effervescent behavior of the foam on
the top of a freshly poured beer, with bubbles appearing and disappearing —
hence the term “quantum foam.”
The quantum foam
isn’t just theoretical. It is quite real. One demonstration of this is when researchers measure the
magnetic properties of subatomic particles like electrons. If the quantum foam
isn’t real, electrons should be magnets with a certain strength. However, when
measurements are made, it turns out that the magnetic strength of electrons is
slightly higher (by about 0.1%). When the effect due to quantum foam is taken
into account, theory and measurement agree perfectly — to twelve digits of
accuracy.
Another
demonstration of the quantum foam comes courtesy of the Casimir Effect,
named after Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir. The effect goes something like
this: Take two metal plates and put them very near one another in a perfect
vacuum, separated by a tiny fraction of a millimeter. If the quantum foam
idea is right, then the vacuum surrounding the plates is filled with an unseen
flurry of subatomic particles blinking into and out of existence.
These particles
have a range of energies, with the most likely energy being very small, but
occasionally higher energies appear. This is where more familiar quantum
effects come into play because classical quantum theory says that particles
are both particles and waves. And waves have wavelengths.
Outside the tiny
gap, all waves can fit without restriction. However, inside the gap, only waves
that are shorter than the gap can exist. Long waves simply cannot fit. Thus,
outside the gap, there are waves of all wavelengths, while inside the gap there
are only short wavelengths. This basically means that there are more kinds of
particles outside than inside, and the effect is that there is a net pressure
inward. Thus, if the quantum foam is real, the plates will be pushed
together.
Scientists made
several measurements of the Casimir effect, however it was in 2001 when the
effect was conclusively demonstrated using the geometry I have described
here. The pressure due to the quantum foam causes the plates to move.
The quantum foam is
real. Nothing is something after all.
***
→ TL;DR skip mark
Questions:
Now that we know “nothing”
doesn’t actually exist, what objective implications does this have for:
A: Religious belief
(e.g., first cause, etc)
B: The Big Bang
event (e.g., inflation theory, etc)
C: The concept of Infinity
(e.g., bubble universes, etc)
Any ideas?
