Can a universe emerge from nothing?

Question

If the Universe is flat and the total energy of the universe can be zero (we don't know if it is, but many theorists support the idea, i.e. at BB initial conditions: t = 0, V = 0, E = 0) then is it possible that all matter in the universe could have emerged from nothing? If so, that what is the total energy of the matter compensated by?

Just in case, sorry for my English =)Thanks to all in advance.

Edit: Yes, I've watched the lecture by Lawrence Krauss, and I know about his book. Haven't read it though (will be too hard for me, I suppose).

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Edit2: @Ahmadi, @Alfred Centauri. Thanks for the answers. But i didn't get it fully. The laws of physics are just notions, abstractions, terms invented by people to describe the processes and regularities in our universe. The law of gravity comes to the scope due to the force of gravity (i know that sounds very primitive, but let's just abstract the details away just for know). Isn't the force of gravity a reciprocity of particles (bosons) between fermions? How can any of the 4 fundametal forces come to scope without existance of particles? Then, where have this particles emerged from? If you say they emerged due to the gravity or some law, then we end up with a circular reasoning.

Answer 1

The answer crucially depends on what is meant by nothing. From the philosopher's nothing, nothing comes.

But the physicist's nothing is something, i.e., there is at least physical law and whatever obeys it.

For example, matter and anti-matter can materialize from the "vacuum" and, in some sense, this is something (matter) from nothing (no matter). But this presupposes the existence of quantum fields and the laws that govern them.

So, your question is actually far more subtle (and ancient) than you might grasp at this moment.

Answer 2

You open a box and say "there is nothing inside". In a strict mathematical (math-logic) language what you mean is: $$!\,\exists x\in ObjectsCouldBeInTheBox: InABox(x) $$ What you do next is just a "linguistic trap" -- you take a word "nothing" out your sentence. Which roughly corresponds to a "$!\exists$" part of your statement. And it's not an object. It's not even a predicate.

But "nothing" is a noun, so it feels like you can operate with it as it was an object. Well, that is a wrong feeling.

Just try to formulate the statement "Universe could emerge from nothing" strictly. I can only get something like: $$\exists x\in SetOfNothings: UniverseEmergesFrom(x) $$ And I don't know what $SetOfNothings$ is...

Answer 3

As of right now, there is no physical theory able to demonstrate the creation of universe out of nothing; even worse, there is no theory able to pass before the big bang (if there is anything or nothing there). The general relativity gives a very mathematical solution to the question, in terms of existence of solutions to the Einstein's equation; but that hardly provides any physical insight. However, there is hope, that String theory can surpass the difficulties raised by the singularities (in the General Relativistic sense of the word) at the big bang and go before that. But even if that happens and String theory provides some descriptions for the universe before the big bang, the issue of going back in time, until some beginning or something, will remain as puzzling unless String theory has more interesting things to say.

As a very amateur and very patient physicist, I believe we have to wait for the new ideas about spacetime (including the "emergent spacetime" notions, that are supported by the String theoretic investigations) to become more mature and hopefully then we will have our knives sharpened enough to analyse the difficult problems concerning the creation/existence of the universe.

Answer 4

Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,

Hawking writes.

http://www.phenomenica.com/2010/09/hawking-god-did-not-create-universe.html

but another question is why our universe has laws of physics?

Answer 5

Qmechanic's link is very apropos. I think this question of whether the universe sprang from nothing is somewhat nonsensical. Heuristically, think of Grandi's series: $$\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}(-1)^n$$ which is just the sum of alternating $1$ and $-1$ (e.g. $1-1+1-1...$)

Then think about summing the energy over some region of space. In principle if the space is a vacuum, and a quantum field is present, then there are virtual particles and anti-particles popping into and out of existence throughout that region of space. So the particle is a $1$ and the anti-particle a $-1$. The natural inclination is to assume that all the particles and anti-particles perfectly annihilate each other. In some person's mind you might argue that the energy sums to zero.

However, if they model their argument after the Grandi series, they would find out that they could never prove their conclusion.

This is because series like the Grandi series are divergent when one takes the limit of the partial sums of the series. Effectively this means that the value of the series depends on where one makes the cutoff. The partial sums of the Grandi series form a chain of $1$'s and $0$'s (e.g. $1+0+1+0...$), or if one starts the series with a $-1$ $$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}(-1)^n$$ then the partial sum would alternate between $-1$ and $0$ (e.g. $-1+0-1+0...$).

In any case, when one starts thinking along these lines, one starts stumbling into a lot of good reasons to think that the claim of the universe arising from nothing is nonsensical and is likely not to be supportable by any consistent physical derivation.

Answer 6

Much of the idea of "a universe emerging from nothing" relies on a naive sense of how time should behave. In a recent work by Yasunori Nomura, he describes how the multiverse can be viewed as intrinsically static. The waveform of the multiverse is completely stationary with no evolution.

He describes that the concept of "time" (and related notions of causality) are tied up with the concept of ordered vs. disordered states (look at the chair example on page 8). The entire multiverse as a whole doesn't need to evolve, only the probabilities within a single universe.

Answer 7

No. The Friedmann equation says that the fractional expansion rate grows with energy density. If the energy density were really zero and there were no curvature, then the universe (or the lack thereof) would simply sit still.

Quantum fluctuations (antimatter + matter annihilations) of the vacuum are not zero energy. In fact, they act like a cosmological constant or dark energy. One of the mysteries of modern physics is why the vacuum energy is so much smaller than what we expect. If we set the planck length as the UV cutoff scale, the vacuum energy would be roughly 120 orders of magnitude denser than the observed amount of dark energy. So there must be something (a symmetry, holography, etc) that reduces this to within observation constraints.

Answer 8

There is really no answer to the question asked as yet because the laws of Quantum gravity are not known. So We really dont know what happened.

Answer 9

It is possible albeit speculative. This is the free-lunch cosmology model. In such model it is supposed that the positive energy of the matter is compensated by the negative energy of the gravitational 'field' to give total zero energy.