How the Physics of Nothing Underlies Everything(nautil.us)
nautil.us
How the Physics of Nothing Underlies Everything
https://nautil.us/how-the-physics-of-nothing-underlies-everything-22894/
65 comments
Speaking as a physicist, I have always hated this nomenclature. There is no vacuum at all. The universe is filled with quantum fields, they are the source of the Casimir effect. Terms as "vacuum energy" are simply a bad naming, the energy comes from the quantum field, which is a very physical object even if not intuitive, as anything quantum.
I think the quantum universe is simply too difficult to perceive for most people. If you begin to talk about quantum biology or get into specifics like the Vaidman bomb tester or how information propagates logically, most times I’ve either been accused of being mentally ill or not knowing what I am talking about.
I think the key mistake is expecting others to operate at a conscious and curious level.
I think the key mistake is expecting others to operate at a conscious and curious level.
I don't really think that it is too difficult. It's like that saying that is around - if you can't explain something simply, then you really don't know the topic well. As Einstein explained relativity to the general public: “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”
Just use an analogies. Analogies are best, even if they are not 100% accurate, which I guess is the point of analogies - to use something one knows to illustrate a new concept.
To explain, I would tell them that the analogy I'm giving is not exact, but a way to get a general idea. So for quantum fields, one possible way is to explain it like an ocean. I would say that a quantum field can be understood as an ocean that covers the entire universe but too small to see, just like atoms. But it's still there. And, there are 24 of these oceans all overlapping each other, for each type of field, like one for electrons, one for the photons, etc. A photon comes into existence in this ocean when it is excited, similar to a wave on an ocean. This means that there is no such thing as "empty space" or a complete vacuum, it is impossible, the quantum fields permeate everything everywhere.
That's pretty simple to understand, even for a 10-year-old.
Maybe there are better analogies. I'm just using this as one such example, showing how to explain a topic, rather than the topic of quantum fields specifically, although the explanation above does that, too.
On youtube, there are great videos that show how this is done, just search on "explain in 5 different levels of complexity". I think you will be fascinated! :)
Here is the search results for it in youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=explain+in+5+di...
Just use an analogies. Analogies are best, even if they are not 100% accurate, which I guess is the point of analogies - to use something one knows to illustrate a new concept.
To explain, I would tell them that the analogy I'm giving is not exact, but a way to get a general idea. So for quantum fields, one possible way is to explain it like an ocean. I would say that a quantum field can be understood as an ocean that covers the entire universe but too small to see, just like atoms. But it's still there. And, there are 24 of these oceans all overlapping each other, for each type of field, like one for electrons, one for the photons, etc. A photon comes into existence in this ocean when it is excited, similar to a wave on an ocean. This means that there is no such thing as "empty space" or a complete vacuum, it is impossible, the quantum fields permeate everything everywhere.
That's pretty simple to understand, even for a 10-year-old.
Maybe there are better analogies. I'm just using this as one such example, showing how to explain a topic, rather than the topic of quantum fields specifically, although the explanation above does that, too.
On youtube, there are great videos that show how this is done, just search on "explain in 5 different levels of complexity". I think you will be fascinated! :)
Here is the search results for it in youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=explain+in+5+di...
I'm in the mood to nitpick:
> In a theatrical demonstration in 1654, he showed that not even two teams of horses straining to rip apart the watermelon-size ball could overcome the suction of nothing.
In fact, there is an addendum saying the article originally said grapefruit, then updated it to watermelon.
Say the watermelon had a diameter of 10 inches, or a cross section of 78.5 sq in. Atmospheric pressure is 14 psi. The force of the vacuum would be 78*14, so 1100 lbs. Impressive, but it seems like a horse could possibly generate that much instantaneous pull.
This site [0] says horses can pull six times their body weight for short pulls! That leads me to believe the sphere was bigger than a watermelon, and in fact, the drawing of the affair shows a sphere about the size of a beach ball.
[0] https://horserookie.com/how-much-weight-can-a-horse-pull/
> In a theatrical demonstration in 1654, he showed that not even two teams of horses straining to rip apart the watermelon-size ball could overcome the suction of nothing.
In fact, there is an addendum saying the article originally said grapefruit, then updated it to watermelon.
Say the watermelon had a diameter of 10 inches, or a cross section of 78.5 sq in. Atmospheric pressure is 14 psi. The force of the vacuum would be 78*14, so 1100 lbs. Impressive, but it seems like a horse could possibly generate that much instantaneous pull.
This site [0] says horses can pull six times their body weight for short pulls! That leads me to believe the sphere was bigger than a watermelon, and in fact, the drawing of the affair shows a sphere about the size of a beach ball.
[0] https://horserookie.com/how-much-weight-can-a-horse-pull/
The actual sphere was 20 inches, but the quality of the vacuum they were able to create is unknown. So it could be a lot less than the theoretical max of 2200lbf. You can see a picture of the original and its measurements here (they are in a museum in Munich): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdeburg_hemispheres
It could be a very poor vacuum by most standards and still have 90% of the force of a perfect vacuum. You get an impressive sealing force very quickly as soon as you can create any pressure difference.
Only if the surface area is big enough. If you only have 1 square inch plates, even a complete vacuum would only net you 14.7 lbs of force - something most people could separate with their hands. But 10 inch side-length plates would already be impossible to separate for almost all humans, even at half atmospheric pressure between the plates.
Part of the issue for the horse is it'll be his first vacuum ever pulled, he doesn't have any knowledge of how to break that weight. Meaning get the motion started, it's got a different response to force than what that horse knows, eg carriages and plows, very different, you can plot it, totally different.
I think that the force response would be like that of a tug of war with the horses on the other side. The balls wouldn't add anything other than a heavy weight, and the process of splitting would be quick as the vacuum is filled up again (not like a rubber band or so), which could feel like a breaking chain or rope to the horses.
No, like it has absolutely no give initially. Then it briefly opens and air floods in, and then force you were exerting is no longer held back by the force of the atmosphere on the suction sphere (treat the opposing force of the other team as horses as being symmetrical, despite it not being so, they communicate with their force on usually a man getting torn apart, the basis for the experiment, science being stronger than the human body). Horses don't want to put their poor specially adapted (for riding) backbone into a prank. When they sense weird shit, they don't pull the same way, looks like it but eh, if you could go back in time and put a spring measuring newtons of force (which this contributed to developing, hence back in time, Hooke came later), they're not going for it like an executioner's horse quartering a man told to die. Then yes and I think the opposite forces of horses in both directions is based on quartering, tearing limbs apart, tearing the sphere in two. That's what it's based on. Horses don't frequently pull things apart except those told to die. Like to work it has to be antagonistic, like there ought to be a bet of some sort. Bets as challenges have their place, it can be very little money or mutually desired rivalrous good. The setup is a huge thing, like how do you cast the ball, how thick is the metal (this makes it give initially when pulled, that comes into play), not just how much pressure and how good the seal, which are of course the figures of merit. The measurement, how much you can pull, what the limit is.
This was good science overall, but beware using living things in experiments like this.
The experimenter and participant can switch places.
Changing the subject a bit, the scientist must have made smaller brass balls for himself to try to pull apart. And it's so subjective, like the puppies that were smarter than the shrinks electrocuting them, knew it was torture and being a dog.
Spesh a puppy, according to the shrinks because then they learn faster which was what the learned helplessness experiment was about, also blank slate for reproducible experiments, and finally a bit of cruelty. I've seen the faces they make sometimes, in sick mode. Again, might as well switch places, me telling them what's up. They were practicing for humans later, the industry for electric dog collars is nothing like the industry around torture. Torture is very expensive to administer, huge losses. What 1984 outlines is incredibly expensive if that's the only form of oppression. But it's not, that's only for the patsy, the hero, whatever you prefer to call him. Even in Chile, where it was massive, they just couldn't torture such an incredible number of people because it's so dirty and it takes a lot of people to run the torture apparatus. Couldn't torture four million people, that would require four hundred million people just to operate at a loss, meaning all of humanity as its slave class subsidizing it, and then who tortures all humanity? No, that doesn't scale. What scales is fear. And never revealing their own fear, like they did to me, never being exposed as being the only true bitch in the system. Like in 1984, which it turns out I live-action-role-played, you read it and at some point it's like, O'Brien is a complete bitch. He needs a full-on Egyptian pyramid (inefficient for space, good for monuments though, which is what Miniluv actually is), with a dungeon, tons of guards for a mile on all sides, no getting out no getting in (secret passages), no Brotherhood. And logistically it's a crazy money-loser. Says so right in the book, they're very wasteful.
Like get this: they actually have a guy carefully putting dust back on Winston Smith's book exactly like he did with in one second, taking like an hour very very carefully, that's a career path for some total loser. It's 3600-to-1 and they brag about it anyway.
O'Brien gets a great wage let me tell you, and everyone in that building is at least in their own view handsomely paid for blind loyalty, and their sadism really, job requirement, like the sadism bribes of government land Pinochet handed out for pittances to the most sadistic and abstracted political supporters, in the elite of course, way below market prices. And they loved him forever, set up a flight Santiago to London direct motherfucking Pinochet airlift, again the inefficiency plane after plane of sychophant must have been weekly or biweekly, just to get the one asshole out without any consequence. Call it 100 airplanes to lift that fat ass out of London, just to clean up after his shit. All the people that the operation required, duh yes lawyers but so much more behind the scenes, so many specialists, each with their field working together as a team.
Like in 1984 there's a guy preparing the heroin for the hero to him addicted to giving in just a tiny bit, you know that bartender went to an institute to specialize in getting the measures right, just enough heroin (it's heroin, it's real heroin in the Miniluv, uncut) to seduce him into thinking he can think he is a bitch, but not that much, they're still mostly torturing him. The funhouse mirrors with screens behind them, same thing, that's a national security first priority getting those special effects built to the highest standard, like there's a make-up crew to paint Winston Smith horribly when he's passed out to make him believe that he really is being bitched in his heart of hearts. Dude and nobody does any work in that book, tells you how privileged Orwell was in a way, he thought he could be a writer or intellectual, yeah. Yeah an intellectual who participates in torture, O'Brien, then yes. Need that degree though, very into the certificate and especially the prestige. Typically, though, intellectuals are persecuted just as Salvador Allende predicted in his final radio address, when the Republic of Chile announced it was operating under the same name, but a change in management due to treason. Still in power, a long golden age for traitors, and it seemed like it would last forever...
Or let's put it another way.
Your choice.
Be a bitch or die being a hero. Die under torture. Or be a bitch.
And in the end, people get what they want. Ends up being, the subtext, is millions of Chileans were subjected to the threat of torture, millions of cases of extortion, because most people aren't so...stupid, as the shrinks put it. They're smart, they let someone else take the fall. But don't underestimate yourself! There is absolutely some threshold of abuse (eg making you eat dog meat, or human feces, or force you to penetrate another victim) at which you wouldn't try delegating the dying to someone else. Don't think there's not a hero in there somewhere! Why else would you watch those movies? That Batman Superman Joker shit resonates with you because in fact most of the genome comes from heroes. It's a remote possibility but that's the entire genome, heroes and heroines. Like most of the genome, like 66% is from the Cambrian explosion, that's the basic outline of vertebrates, crazy era, the Justice League, so idealistic. So every so often, and you can tell age of fossils with this because it's like a clock, a mutation brings about a new protein. Molecular clock, literally. Like 10,000 years. A defect within a defect, in fact. There is a local maximum, this is a departure from that, hence defect, with the stigma, defect. Then, something happens and you go even farther out--and attempts to go with the herd are hopeless. And this protein made him different. It's rare but it's like the whole genome, apart from that it's remixes, like deciding in what order to watch Batman and Superman movies for the millionth time.
But don't think those actors with their special effects are the heroes! You're more of a hero for watching that movie than they are for starring in it, by a lot. And they aren't actually heroes in a Roman Law capacity as they , people confuse actor with character. On the contrary, Heath Ledger! I actually did that exact same shit to a real gangster, made my getaway just like Heath Ledger, like a glitch in the system. Declared a hero, told what I did was perfect. And that was just the beginning, long weekend, long ten years of silence. But what happened ultimately? Justice, the dungeon being put to original intended use. A bitch in the system.
This was good science overall, but beware using living things in experiments like this.
The experimenter and participant can switch places.
Changing the subject a bit, the scientist must have made smaller brass balls for himself to try to pull apart. And it's so subjective, like the puppies that were smarter than the shrinks electrocuting them, knew it was torture and being a dog.
Spesh a puppy, according to the shrinks because then they learn faster which was what the learned helplessness experiment was about, also blank slate for reproducible experiments, and finally a bit of cruelty. I've seen the faces they make sometimes, in sick mode. Again, might as well switch places, me telling them what's up. They were practicing for humans later, the industry for electric dog collars is nothing like the industry around torture. Torture is very expensive to administer, huge losses. What 1984 outlines is incredibly expensive if that's the only form of oppression. But it's not, that's only for the patsy, the hero, whatever you prefer to call him. Even in Chile, where it was massive, they just couldn't torture such an incredible number of people because it's so dirty and it takes a lot of people to run the torture apparatus. Couldn't torture four million people, that would require four hundred million people just to operate at a loss, meaning all of humanity as its slave class subsidizing it, and then who tortures all humanity? No, that doesn't scale. What scales is fear. And never revealing their own fear, like they did to me, never being exposed as being the only true bitch in the system. Like in 1984, which it turns out I live-action-role-played, you read it and at some point it's like, O'Brien is a complete bitch. He needs a full-on Egyptian pyramid (inefficient for space, good for monuments though, which is what Miniluv actually is), with a dungeon, tons of guards for a mile on all sides, no getting out no getting in (secret passages), no Brotherhood. And logistically it's a crazy money-loser. Says so right in the book, they're very wasteful.
Like get this: they actually have a guy carefully putting dust back on Winston Smith's book exactly like he did with in one second, taking like an hour very very carefully, that's a career path for some total loser. It's 3600-to-1 and they brag about it anyway.
O'Brien gets a great wage let me tell you, and everyone in that building is at least in their own view handsomely paid for blind loyalty, and their sadism really, job requirement, like the sadism bribes of government land Pinochet handed out for pittances to the most sadistic and abstracted political supporters, in the elite of course, way below market prices. And they loved him forever, set up a flight Santiago to London direct motherfucking Pinochet airlift, again the inefficiency plane after plane of sychophant must have been weekly or biweekly, just to get the one asshole out without any consequence. Call it 100 airplanes to lift that fat ass out of London, just to clean up after his shit. All the people that the operation required, duh yes lawyers but so much more behind the scenes, so many specialists, each with their field working together as a team.
Like in 1984 there's a guy preparing the heroin for the hero to him addicted to giving in just a tiny bit, you know that bartender went to an institute to specialize in getting the measures right, just enough heroin (it's heroin, it's real heroin in the Miniluv, uncut) to seduce him into thinking he can think he is a bitch, but not that much, they're still mostly torturing him. The funhouse mirrors with screens behind them, same thing, that's a national security first priority getting those special effects built to the highest standard, like there's a make-up crew to paint Winston Smith horribly when he's passed out to make him believe that he really is being bitched in his heart of hearts. Dude and nobody does any work in that book, tells you how privileged Orwell was in a way, he thought he could be a writer or intellectual, yeah. Yeah an intellectual who participates in torture, O'Brien, then yes. Need that degree though, very into the certificate and especially the prestige. Typically, though, intellectuals are persecuted just as Salvador Allende predicted in his final radio address, when the Republic of Chile announced it was operating under the same name, but a change in management due to treason. Still in power, a long golden age for traitors, and it seemed like it would last forever...
Or let's put it another way.
Your choice.
Be a bitch or die being a hero. Die under torture. Or be a bitch.
And in the end, people get what they want. Ends up being, the subtext, is millions of Chileans were subjected to the threat of torture, millions of cases of extortion, because most people aren't so...stupid, as the shrinks put it. They're smart, they let someone else take the fall. But don't underestimate yourself! There is absolutely some threshold of abuse (eg making you eat dog meat, or human feces, or force you to penetrate another victim) at which you wouldn't try delegating the dying to someone else. Don't think there's not a hero in there somewhere! Why else would you watch those movies? That Batman Superman Joker shit resonates with you because in fact most of the genome comes from heroes. It's a remote possibility but that's the entire genome, heroes and heroines. Like most of the genome, like 66% is from the Cambrian explosion, that's the basic outline of vertebrates, crazy era, the Justice League, so idealistic. So every so often, and you can tell age of fossils with this because it's like a clock, a mutation brings about a new protein. Molecular clock, literally. Like 10,000 years. A defect within a defect, in fact. There is a local maximum, this is a departure from that, hence defect, with the stigma, defect. Then, something happens and you go even farther out--and attempts to go with the herd are hopeless. And this protein made him different. It's rare but it's like the whole genome, apart from that it's remixes, like deciding in what order to watch Batman and Superman movies for the millionth time.
But don't think those actors with their special effects are the heroes! You're more of a hero for watching that movie than they are for starring in it, by a lot. And they aren't actually heroes in a Roman Law capacity as they , people confuse actor with character. On the contrary, Heath Ledger! I actually did that exact same shit to a real gangster, made my getaway just like Heath Ledger, like a glitch in the system. Declared a hero, told what I did was perfect. And that was just the beginning, long weekend, long ten years of silence. But what happened ultimately? Justice, the dungeon being put to original intended use. A bitch in the system.
I think I'm at the length limit so let me add: it's an auction. A contest, a betrayal contest.
When everyone goes along with the abuse, the amount of abuse goes up. Instantly. Not even overnight, like 8AM to 9AM. The only thing that protected the dignity of Chileans was--for a long time--the resistance, counter-terrorist (officially designated as such by the President in the final radio address, a message that carries official weight, final instructions from a shrink in fact--he researched psychiatry--but more of like a psych, a real attendant of the soul. And as such his suicide was unconditionally heroic, not cowardly by any means. The Chilean left tiptoes around this, uh-uh. Suicide is legitimate under the threat of torture. Better to die than betray. The other option was in fact to cooperate, get threatened all the time by everyone, suck up to the worst people on earth, and the biggest thing--bid up the betrayal contest, and betray. Treason. Betrayal. The absolute worst, the lowest circle of Hell. I've been told by many doctors I'm stupid to think such a thing, for real, like in practice not on film in real life. But it's not so strange. Some people are smart, they cooperate. Some people are dumb, they don't. But don't think you're so smart, if it hadn't been me it would have been up to you, could you have done what I did?
I actually think you could in fact. Everyone, the instant you realize the betrayal contest is a set-up, and they capture you--you have a limit too, believe it or not. It will come as a total surprise, but you can only take so much. At some point, there are conditions (which is what this experiment is, measuring those conditions to get as close to them as possible) under which you physically couldn't submit (shrinks unanimously agree to the contrary). Maximum suffering with no consequences, science applied to the mind. Your dignity is defined by your courage. At any rate the Chilean Idealists--especially the detenidos desaparecidos (not going to translate that)--those guys stuck up to torture, that's why they erased all traces of them. Didn't want to see how much a man can take and still not cooperate. José María Sepúlveda. They erased the really dangerous ones, the ones who were totally right and totally wronged, they guys who bit and shit and nobody wanted to be assigned to torture. And three thousand of them, tres mil, under those specific conditions of erasure. Three thousand really dangerous men and women, on a totally different level than anything I've ever done or been through. I went in like a lot of people, them to much worse than me, comparatively speaking my only merit was making it out. Live to tell the tale, nothing more.
Them? Just wow.
When everyone goes along with the abuse, the amount of abuse goes up. Instantly. Not even overnight, like 8AM to 9AM. The only thing that protected the dignity of Chileans was--for a long time--the resistance, counter-terrorist (officially designated as such by the President in the final radio address, a message that carries official weight, final instructions from a shrink in fact--he researched psychiatry--but more of like a psych, a real attendant of the soul. And as such his suicide was unconditionally heroic, not cowardly by any means. The Chilean left tiptoes around this, uh-uh. Suicide is legitimate under the threat of torture. Better to die than betray. The other option was in fact to cooperate, get threatened all the time by everyone, suck up to the worst people on earth, and the biggest thing--bid up the betrayal contest, and betray. Treason. Betrayal. The absolute worst, the lowest circle of Hell. I've been told by many doctors I'm stupid to think such a thing, for real, like in practice not on film in real life. But it's not so strange. Some people are smart, they cooperate. Some people are dumb, they don't. But don't think you're so smart, if it hadn't been me it would have been up to you, could you have done what I did?
I actually think you could in fact. Everyone, the instant you realize the betrayal contest is a set-up, and they capture you--you have a limit too, believe it or not. It will come as a total surprise, but you can only take so much. At some point, there are conditions (which is what this experiment is, measuring those conditions to get as close to them as possible) under which you physically couldn't submit (shrinks unanimously agree to the contrary). Maximum suffering with no consequences, science applied to the mind. Your dignity is defined by your courage. At any rate the Chilean Idealists--especially the detenidos desaparecidos (not going to translate that)--those guys stuck up to torture, that's why they erased all traces of them. Didn't want to see how much a man can take and still not cooperate. José María Sepúlveda. They erased the really dangerous ones, the ones who were totally right and totally wronged, they guys who bit and shit and nobody wanted to be assigned to torture. And three thousand of them, tres mil, under those specific conditions of erasure. Three thousand really dangerous men and women, on a totally different level than anything I've ever done or been through. I went in like a lot of people, them to much worse than me, comparatively speaking my only merit was making it out. Live to tell the tale, nothing more.
Them? Just wow.
> he showed that not even two teams of horses straining to rip apart the watermelon-size ball could overcome the suction of nothing.
Um. It's not "suction of nothing", it's the pressure of the atmosphere. If the vacuum-"filled" ball were put into another vacuumed container, a small child would have no trouble separating the halves.
Um. It's not "suction of nothing", it's the pressure of the atmosphere. If the vacuum-"filled" ball were put into another vacuumed container, a small child would have no trouble separating the halves.
If the balls were made of very smoothly polished metal would that be true?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_welding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_welding
> If the vacuum-"filled" ball were put into another vacuumed container, a small child would have no trouble separating the halves.
Hell, they would likely come apart on their own due to a low pressure differential and gravity pulling at them.
Hell, they would likely come apart on their own due to a low pressure differential and gravity pulling at them.
Not true!
Cold welding
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_welding
Cold welding
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_welding
At what point did anyone specify the surfaces are highly polished and clean?
Where can I see good explanations of these terms?
A small child in a vacuum chamber is going to have larger concerns.
This is a miscomprehension.
The underlying aspect of existence is universal potential. All existent reality is a perturbation of universal potential distributing as an “aspect” of existential being.
This nothing being observed is actually the distribution of potential acting upon itself. The “space between” existent potential is the potential acting upon neighboring potential. So where “nothing” is observed, it is actually the field separation of the discrete potential.
For instance in the pauli exclusion principle, the boundary of a particle is not similar to a physical object, more like a magnetic field, these oppositional forces displace other particles, producing the distant nothing in between.
The smallest aspect of the universe isn’t a particle, it is potential, and a particle is a discrete localization of the stably bound particle’s potential. And nothing is all that will fit in between!
The underlying aspect of existence is universal potential. All existent reality is a perturbation of universal potential distributing as an “aspect” of existential being.
This nothing being observed is actually the distribution of potential acting upon itself. The “space between” existent potential is the potential acting upon neighboring potential. So where “nothing” is observed, it is actually the field separation of the discrete potential.
For instance in the pauli exclusion principle, the boundary of a particle is not similar to a physical object, more like a magnetic field, these oppositional forces displace other particles, producing the distant nothing in between.
The smallest aspect of the universe isn’t a particle, it is potential, and a particle is a discrete localization of the stably bound particle’s potential. And nothing is all that will fit in between!
To attempt to summarize the touchstones from a microscopic, and macroscopic approach,
force conception of pressure -> modern physics and qft, Higgs field implies non-vacuum -> kaluza klein and string theory compactified dimensions -> it's actually a theory for each vacuum state -> the anthropic principle -> some vacuum states hypothesized to destroy spacetime vvv
https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.L...
^^^ a dark energy description by de Sitter <- the observation that the universe is undergoing accelerated expansion <- the multiverse hypothesis <- the anthropic principle
force conception of pressure -> modern physics and qft, Higgs field implies non-vacuum -> kaluza klein and string theory compactified dimensions -> it's actually a theory for each vacuum state -> the anthropic principle -> some vacuum states hypothesized to destroy spacetime vvv
https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.L...
^^^ a dark energy description by de Sitter <- the observation that the universe is undergoing accelerated expansion <- the multiverse hypothesis <- the anthropic principle
Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there anything at all?
I suspect that there isn’t just something, but that actually there is everything
— all possible worlds, or maybe more formally, all logically consistent structures. In other words, there is no difference between existence and possibility. The answer to why there is anything then boils down to “because it can”.
Yes, this puts something I believe rather nicely. I think this applies to every mathematical structure, and that, in a sense, the number 3 and my desk exist on the same conceptual level of reality. (Only one is a tad more complex than the other).
It is actually the most elegant answer to why we're here.
I know Occam's razor is not a valid scientific argument, but supposing that everything just exists removes the arbitrariness of it all, our subjective view of the world in particular. It's the simplest explanation of it all.
I also believe that the simplest axiomatization of this theory would be a paradox. From a false postulate, any true (and/or false) statements can be derived. Including that which describes/corresponds to our reality.
It only takes 0 == 1 for everything to exist, but that's something we cannot logically prove, nor use at our advantage. It's a useless theory of everything, but a neat one.
I know Occam's razor is not a valid scientific argument, but supposing that everything just exists removes the arbitrariness of it all, our subjective view of the world in particular. It's the simplest explanation of it all.
I also believe that the simplest axiomatization of this theory would be a paradox. From a false postulate, any true (and/or false) statements can be derived. Including that which describes/corresponds to our reality.
It only takes 0 == 1 for everything to exist, but that's something we cannot logically prove, nor use at our advantage. It's a useless theory of everything, but a neat one.
If you consider existence / non-existence as a quantum superposition you'll have 0 observers and thus no entanglement in the non-existing branch and basically get existence for free. Maybe existence just happens to be the default. Joscha Bach has more elaborate thoughts on this.
Why do we get the quantum entanglement instead of “nothing”?
I recommend the 'history of the universe' channel as they ask this exact question.
https://youtube.com/c/HistoryoftheUniverse
https://youtube.com/c/HistoryoftheUniverse
Per definition, an entity must exist that doesn’t have a beginning. (It is hard for me to reason about events outside of time…)
How would you observe "nothing"?
If there were nothing at all, that would really be something eh
Why is a terrible question when dealing with the reduction basis :)
I can’t be the only one who gets some pangs of anxiety reading about this stuff
Have you ever "played" Space Engine? Zooming around the universe with a speed approaching megaparsecs always induces a sinking feeling in my stomach and a sense of insignificance, and it's a little bit what I'd imagine the Total Perspective Vortex from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe would feel like.
To me it feels like home. I'd love to be a particle zooming across the vast cosmos at light speed. Some of the best dreams I've ever seen.
Unfortunately if you were moving light speed you wouldn't experience time, so it would be rather less eventful than you imagine. If you kicked it down just below light speed existence would be a bright white/blue spot in front of you.
With lightspeed you are going pretty much nowhere. If you are flying through intergalactic space zipping past galaxies you are probably at least going trillions or quadrillions times the speed of light. Even just crossing the Milkyway would take you a hundred thousand years.
>> Even just crossing the Milkyway would take you a hundred thousand years.
except due to time dilation, you would just experience it as the blink of an eye (and that's assuming that you're not quite at full light speed, full light speed and it's nothing)...
except due to time dilation, you would just experience it as the blink of an eye (and that's assuming that you're not quite at full light speed, full light speed and it's nothing)...
We are talking about Space Engine, there you are essentially a stationary observer. If you would actually make the trip with a very fast conventional space ship, then you obviously could not reach the speed of light but I think it would be fair for an outside observer to say that you are essentially travelling at lightspeed when you are travelling at 0.99c in which case it would still take you 14,000 years. You would have to get really close to lightspeed to make it in the blink of an eye.
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Can you explain the reason for anxiety? I read through first few paragraphs where author talked about vacuum. "Nothing" about it is anxiety inducing. But then, I grew up in the subcontinent where the ancients postulated that everything came from Shunyata (nothingness).
More accurately, that everything comes from and is shunyata (emptiness). Emptiness is also not nothingness, which is a different thing. Emptiness (of svabhava: "self existence") means infinite potentiality, since it is what makes anything possible. Nagarjuna proved that if something is not empty of self existence then it would annihilate itself and be unable to have any impact on our reality. The only reason that things can (seem to) exist is because nothing exists in itself, so it is impossible to distinguish between say, an apple, and the entire universe.
I think it’s just imagining how big the universe is…and then imagining that, but multiplied with space in between. The possible collapse of it all is a fun bonus.
A kind of megalophobia? Mixed with what cosmic horror invokes, the feeling that you are nothing in an indifferent universe. Knowing just enough about the universe to know you are nothing.
Universe is not exactly indifferent. Neither indifferent nor not-indifferent. David Deutsch offered some consolation to me, because when you take in account multiple dimensions there is also a vast quantity of Earths out there "somewhere".
The idea that there are multiple parallel earths is fun to think about, but know that it is an unfalsifiable hypothesis and arguable is outside the realm of science (and close to the realm of meta-physics).
Is this knowledge particularly useful in some way in this case? Does it prompt any particular action in response?
If you could figure out the distribution of universes, somehow, and figure out the distribution intelligences across them to a high enough fidelity to predict their actions (for example, by crunching numbers with a star-sized-computer, predicting what modal source code of some universe-spanning AI in a parallel universe looks like, and running it), you could in principle bargain in a cross-universe manner that leads to both parties/universes gaining value. Say you highly value diamond, and want to turn all matter in your lightcone to diamond; you've got 99% of it, but the last 1% is extremely expensive. Your counterparty values happy sentient life, and has dismantled 99% of the stars in their light-cone to make very long-lasting artificial habitable worlds, but the last 1% is the hardest to use- but would be easier to turn into diamonds than your last 1% of usable matter, and your last 1% of usable matter is easier to turn into living things than diamond. If you could somehow both predict with high confidence that a universe containing your counterparty exists, you could both gain value by using that last 1% to help the other, in a prisoner's dilemna sort-of-way.
(One possible avenue against defection is that if I can simulate you well enough, I know by definition whether you'll defect or not.)
This whole process is called 'timeless acausal trade', and it's pretty interesting.
(One possible avenue against defection is that if I can simulate you well enough, I know by definition whether you'll defect or not.)
This whole process is called 'timeless acausal trade', and it's pretty interesting.
It's the damn truth (the only true "true") at the bottom of everything. But the anxiety goes away after a while.
Not being an American, and watching the events in America and American politics has helped me realize there is some things i have Absolutely no control over.. and if I have no input or control over it then there is no reason for me to get stressed about it.
Physics is one of those things. its too big and far away for me to stress about it. If its gonna kill me I cant stop it.. I might as well enjoy what I do have control over.
Physics is one of those things. its too big and far away for me to stress about it. If its gonna kill me I cant stop it.. I might as well enjoy what I do have control over.
Physics does indeed kill all of us
Biology kills us first, and in a manner that's contingent, not necessary; there are universes with physics similar to ours where life could continue forever. (Just add some rare non-energy-conserving interactions to be exploited).
Eventually, over 10^100 years of operation you get into interesting problems with the number of possible states a mind of a given size has being finite; but if you can continually add more matter via non-energy-conserving interactions, you could add more memory/processing up to fundamental physical limits: you can only fit so much information in a given volume before it collapses into a black hole; you can only communicate at c, so if you make your mind bigger, it has to parallelize or slow down; Given the expansion of space, at some scale, light signals from one end of your mind can't reach the other (the space inbetween expands faster than C), which would be the the fundamental limit... except that gravity counteracts the expansion of space, and I'm not sure what the expansion properties of a visible-universe-filled volume of just-barely-black-hole-subcritical computronium is. I imagine you're in a big crunch regime at that point, except... Isn't that the same thing as a black hole collapse? Nonetheless, there's presumably some balancing density that perfectly avoids both expansion and contraction, though it's presumably unstable. Ignoring the instability-difficulties, though, that means you can continue growing the amount of memory you have by slowing down your processing speed to one clock cycle every ~2*the diameter of your mind in light-years years. I'm not sure what the ultimate limiting factor is here, given infinite time; does the amount of computation of this system in infinite time go to infinity as your scale goes to infinity, or does it asymptotically approach some finite upper bound?
Eventually, over 10^100 years of operation you get into interesting problems with the number of possible states a mind of a given size has being finite; but if you can continually add more matter via non-energy-conserving interactions, you could add more memory/processing up to fundamental physical limits: you can only fit so much information in a given volume before it collapses into a black hole; you can only communicate at c, so if you make your mind bigger, it has to parallelize or slow down; Given the expansion of space, at some scale, light signals from one end of your mind can't reach the other (the space inbetween expands faster than C), which would be the the fundamental limit... except that gravity counteracts the expansion of space, and I'm not sure what the expansion properties of a visible-universe-filled volume of just-barely-black-hole-subcritical computronium is. I imagine you're in a big crunch regime at that point, except... Isn't that the same thing as a black hole collapse? Nonetheless, there's presumably some balancing density that perfectly avoids both expansion and contraction, though it's presumably unstable. Ignoring the instability-difficulties, though, that means you can continue growing the amount of memory you have by slowing down your processing speed to one clock cycle every ~2*the diameter of your mind in light-years years. I'm not sure what the ultimate limiting factor is here, given infinite time; does the amount of computation of this system in infinite time go to infinity as your scale goes to infinity, or does it asymptotically approach some finite upper bound?
nah, physics just describes processes from reality.
It's the universe that kills us.
It's the universe that kills us.
reading the selfish gene also does this - “you can’t handle the truth” applies to all of us!
"...If so, the good times won’t last forever."
"...Don’t panic. Even if our vacuum is only metastable, given its staying power so far, it will probably last for billions of years more."
Ooph, such a wild ride an article!
No wonder a participating scientist, as mentioned, has worked himself to a disturbing need to seek therapy.
Reading this, it seems that the science is very comfy operating with time concept as we know it, projecting its flow into the 'billions of years' into the future. Time as a sole witness to truth and to the human struggle to comprehend its own destiny. But could this time too be a temporary or a even dynamic state or even a dimension itself?
"...Don’t panic. Even if our vacuum is only metastable, given its staying power so far, it will probably last for billions of years more."
Ooph, such a wild ride an article!
No wonder a participating scientist, as mentioned, has worked himself to a disturbing need to seek therapy.
Reading this, it seems that the science is very comfy operating with time concept as we know it, projecting its flow into the 'billions of years' into the future. Time as a sole witness to truth and to the human struggle to comprehend its own destiny. But could this time too be a temporary or a even dynamic state or even a dimension itself?
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Of possible interest
https://archive.org/details/PodolnySomethingCalledNothing
https://archive.org/details/PodolnySomethingCalledNothing
There is a nice popular science movie called Everything And Nothing, „starring“ Jim Al-Khalili that tells a similar story (without involving string theory). My kids loved it.
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> “Nothing?”
> The old woman had her spiel ready. “Physicists long since determined that most of space was empty, and most of each atom was empty, so that the overwhelming nature of the universe is nothingness, with tiny interruptions that contain all of existence. So their library is named for this Nothing that comprises most of the universe. And the mathematicians share the space, because they are proud to say that what they study is even less real than what the physicists study, so their portion is called the Library of Less than Nothing.”
> Rigg decided he was going to like the physicists. It seemed to him, though, that the mathematicians must have an annoying competitive streak.
Pathfinder (2010) by Orson Scott Card