The Second Law of Thermodynamics Precludes an Infinite Acting Universe

[ding]

That's right the claim is the vacuum energy always existed. Calling it "matter" is misleading. That term is sort of reserved for stuff like hubcaps and electrons through a wire.
.

So everything that was "supposedly" created from nothing - all the particles that mutually annihilated themselves creating the CMB and all of the remaining particles that formed the matter in the universe - existed always as vacuum energy?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Since the beginning of man the question of the origin of the universe has been hotly contested. Specifically, was it created or has it always existed. It was the position of Judaeo-Christian religion that the universe was created from nothing or creatio ex nihilo. Ancient philosophers believed the universe was eternal in that it had existed forever. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning.

But if the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction.

That the universe began has been proven a myriad of ways. Red shift shows that everything is moving away from everything else due to an expanding universe. An expansion that began when vast amounts of energy were released through matter anti matter annihilation during the creation of the universe. Cosmic background radiation shows the residue radiation left over from the matter and anti-matter mutual annihilation which occurred when the universe was filled with energy during the quantum tunneling event which is how the universe was created from nothing.

The problem with a universe that has existed forever (i.e. a cyclical universe) is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. For every matter to energy or energy to matter exchange there is a loss of usable energy. So while the total energy of the universe does not decrease, the usable energy of the universe does decrease. If it is a periodic or cyclical universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle.

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state. A cyclical universe cannot avoid this problem. Since we do not see thermal equilibrium (good thing too because there would be no life) we know that the universe did have a beginning.

Time is man's fiction. I don't think it exists for the rest of the Universe

 

[Wuwei]

So everything that was "supposedly" created from nothing - all the particles that mutually annihilated themselves creating the CMB and all of the remaining particles that formed the matter in the universe - existed always as vacuum energy?

Of course not.
I told you what scientist think happened in post #252.
.

 

[ding]

Of course not.
I told you what scientist think happened in post #252.
.

I know what you said in post #252. You are trying very hard to say the universe wasn't created from nothing but that is exactly what you are describing.

 

[ding]

From the paper, "Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing"

"...Although the picture of the universe created spontaneously from nothing has emerged for a long time, a rigorous mathematical foundation for such a picture is still missing. According to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, a small empty space, also called a small true vacuum bubble, can be created probabilistically by quantum fluctuations of the metastable false vacuum. But if the small bubble cannot expand rapidly, it will disappear soon due to quantum fluctuations. In this case, the early universe would disappear before it grows up. On the other side, if the small bubble expands rapidly to a large enough size, the universe can then be created irreversibly. In this paper, we obtain analytic solutions of the WDWE of the true vacuum bubble. With the de BroglieBohm quantum trajectory theory, we prove that once a small true vacuum bubble is created, it has the chance to expand exponentially when it is very small, i.e. , a ≪ 1. The exponential expansion will end when the true vacuum bubble becomes very large, i.e., a ≫ 1. It is the quantum potential of the small true vacuum bubble that plays the role of the cosmological constant and provides the power for its exponential expansion. This explicitly shows that the universe can be created spontaneously by virtue of a quantum mechanism..."

"...In summary, we have presented a mathematical proof that the universe can be created spontaneously from nothing. When a small true vacuum bubble is created by quantum fluctuations of the metastable false vacuum, it can expand exponentially if the ordering factor takes the value p = −2 (or 4). In this way, the early universe appears irreversibly. We have shown that it is the quantum potential that provides the power for the exponential expansion of the bubble. Thus, we can conclude that the birth of the early universe is completely determined by quantum mechanism. One may ask the question when and how space, time and matter appear in the early universe from nothing. With the exponential expansion of the bubble, it is doubtless that space and time will emerge. Due to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, there should be virtual particle pairs created by quantum fluctuations. Generally speaking, a virtual particle pair will annihilate soon after its birth. But, two virtual particles from a pair can be separated immediately before annihilation due to the exponential expansion of the bubble. Therefore, there would be a large amount of real particles created as vacuum bubble expands exponentially. A rigorous mathematical calculation for the rate of particle creation with the exponential expansion of the bubble will be studied in our future work..."

 

[Wuwei]

I know what you said in post #252. You are trying very hard to say the universe wasn't created from nothing but that is exactly what you are describing.

I agree with the article totally. And yes I like to avoid the term "nothing".
The word "nothing" in this context is a layman's term for the more exact term "vacuum energy". In science writing the "nothing" is more to attract the attention of the reader than clarity.

It would have been better if the title of the article you cited was not,
"Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing" but was replaced by the title,
"Spontaneous creation of the universe from vacuum energy" or
"Spontaneous creation of the universe from vacuum fluctuation".

I avoid the word "nothing" in that context because people who don't know some of the features of quantum electrodynamics confuse the word nothing with nonexistence -- as in more colloquial contexts such as "I have nothing in my bank account" or "There is nothing in my sock drawer." In those contexts nothing means zilch, nada.

There you have it. Are we done now?
.

 

[ding]

I agree with the article totally. And yes I like to avoid the term "nothing".
The word "nothing" in this context is a layman's term for the more exact term "vacuum energy". In science writing the "nothing" is more to attract the attention of the reader than clarity.

It would have been better if the title of the article you cited was not,
"Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing" but was replaced by the title,
"Spontaneous creation of the universe from vacuum energy" or
"Spontaneous creation of the universe from vacuum fluctuation".

I avoid the word "nothing" in that context because people who don't know some of the features of quantum electrodynamics confuse the word nothing with nonexistence -- as in more colloquial contexts such as "I have nothing in my bank account" or "There is nothing in my sock drawer." In those contexts nothing means zilch, nada.

There you have it. Are we done now?
.

The author is no laymen and his paper wasn't written for laymen. The process does create energy from nothing; energy was never in existence until it was created through a quantum fluctuation. Prior to being created energy only existed as quantum potential.

I wasn't the one who had the problem. So only you can answer if we are done.

 

[Wuwei]

The author is no laymen and his paper wasn't written for laymen. The process does create energy from nothing; energy was never in existence until it was created through a quantum fluctuation. Prior to being created energy only existed as quantum potential.

That's right, except as long as the laws of physics exist quantum fluctuations happen continuously and aren't exactly nothing, nada, zilch. As I (and the authors) said before, the universe as we know it only happened when a fluctuation reaches a critical size.

 

[ding]

That's right, except as long as the laws of physics exist quantum fluctuations happen continuously and aren't exactly nothing, nada, zilch. As I (and the authors) said before, the universe as we know it only happened when a fluctuation reaches a critical size.

If quantum fluctuations are natural, the universe is unnautural.

 

[Wuwei]

If quantum fluctuations are natural, the universe is unnautural.

It was observed in three quite different types of experiments.
Yes, quantum mechanics and particle physics are very weird. Even Einstein thought so. It evades our intuition. We can't blame QM for that. It's our minds that have to adjust to QM.
.

 

[ding]

It was observed in three quite different types of experiments.
Yes, quantum mechanics and particle physics are very weird. Even Einstein thought so. It evades our intuition. We can't blame QM for that. It's our minds that have to adjust to QM.
.

Would you say it's unnatural for our universe to exist?

 

[Wuwei]

Would you say it's unnatural for our universe to exist?

I don't think that way. To twist your question around, I would say nature is not unnatural.

To me one great mystery is why the universe follows mathematics to the most minute detail. Mathematics is natural. Set theory, group theory, number theory, multidimensional group algebras, all can't be anything other than exactly what they are. So far, the universe is completely in lock step with that math.

I am truly astounded by the universe - the delicate balance of the elementary forces, particles and constants; the hugeness; the age; the 17 elementary particles that give rise to a wide variety of galaxies, stellar structures, down to the atoms, elements, molecules, life; and finally to consciousness and intelligence in man so he can begin to grasp all this.

The agreement between basic particle physics experiments with mathematical models is in the range of one part per billions which is at the level of experimental accuracy.

Some people say, with all that, there must be an intelligent designer that we should praise with some sort of liturgy. That is unknowable so I ignore the designer or God or whatever. But I think, if there were a designer, forget the praise and prayer. The finest "liturgy" is to investigate the "design" in all it's evidential and mathematical glory.

Have a Merry Christmas
.

 

[Batcat]

Since the beginning of man the question of the origin of the universe has been hotly contested. Specifically, was it created or has it always existed. It was the position of Judaeo-Christian religion that the universe was created from nothing or creatio ex nihilo. Ancient philosophers believed the universe was eternal in that it had existed forever. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning.

But if the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction.

That the universe began has been proven a myriad of ways. Red shift shows that everything is moving away from everything else due to an expanding universe. An expansion that began when vast amounts of energy were released through matter anti matter annihilation during the creation of the universe. Cosmic background radiation shows the residue radiation left over from the matter and anti-matter mutual annihilation which occurred when the universe was filled with energy during the quantum tunneling event which is how the universe was created from nothing.

The problem with a universe that has existed forever (i.e. a cyclical universe) is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. For every matter to energy or energy to matter exchange there is a loss of usable energy. So while the total energy of the universe does not decrease, the usable energy of the universe does decrease. If it is a periodic or cyclical universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle.

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state. A cyclical universe cannot avoid this problem. Since we do not see thermal equilibrium (good thing too because there would be no life) we know that the universe did have a beginning.

Obviously we don’t understand as much as we think we do.

A hundred years from now people will laugh at many of our currently accepted theories.

A thousand years from now today will be looked at as we look at the Iron Age.

Of course that assumes we are still around and have avoided killing ourselves off or suffered a civilization ending event such as an asteroid strike or super volcano eruption.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Of course, many cyclic theories of the universe can produce an infinite, cycling universe without violating the second law. This is still all theory, but it is a fact that we do not know for certain the second law precludes such infinitely acting universes.