"The scientists often have more unfettered imaginations than current philosophers do. Relativity theory came as a complete surprise to philosophers, and so did quantum mechanics, and so did other things." ~Robert Nozick
E=MC2, energy can not be created or destroyed. One of the cornerstones of Einsteins special relativity. Here's a nearly 2 hour PBS HD special on the subject, or a PBS webpage if you prefer to read. Yet we keep talking about how everything was created at the big bang. A single point of extremely hot, dense, energy became everything we see today. If you like Morgan Freeman, I recommend his series "Through the Wormhole." The episode "What Happened Before the Beginning?"
This is by all means an assumption, as most believe we can't find a way to test what happened before the big bang. Well, you don't have to. If we take Einstein at his word, if energy can not be created or destroyed, then it has always been there. But if it's always been there, how do we explain the evidence for the big bang? Could the energy have existed before the big bang in these quantum fields and the only thing that was "created" were amplified field fluctuations ("matter") and the general idea of time? First lets imagine the death of the big bang and get a quick grasp for entropy. The end of the big bang might be the end of the universe as we know it, but it might not be the end of its existence.
This is by all means an assumption, as most believe we can't find a way to test what happened before the big bang. Well, you don't have to. If we take Einstein at his word, if energy can not be created or destroyed, then it has always been there. But if it's always been there, how do we explain the evidence for the big bang? Could the energy have existed before the big bang in these quantum fields and the only thing that was "created" were amplified field fluctuations ("matter") and the general idea of time? First lets imagine the death of the big bang and get a quick grasp for entropy. The end of the big bang might be the end of the universe as we know it, but it might not be the end of its existence.
"Entropy quantifies the number of different microscopic states that a physical system can have while looking the same on a large scale. For instance, an omelet has higher entropy than an egg because there are more ways for the molecules of an omelet to rearrange themselves and still remain an omelet than for an egg, notes cosmologist Sean Carroll of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena."
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/10/05/new-calculations-suggest-universe-may-be-a-bit-closer-to-heat-death
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/10/05/new-calculations-suggest-universe-may-be-a-bit-closer-to-heat-death
Here are some of the leading idea as to how the universe might end, given the facts.
The basic jist is that the universe seems to have 3 options; a "big crunch", a "big rip", or a "big freeze."
- http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/four-ways-the-universe-could-end/
- http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/10/05/new-calculations-suggest-universe-may-be-a-bit-closer-to-heat-death
- http://www.livescience.com/39604-doomsday-universe-fate-depends-on-mass-of-tiny-particle.html
The basic jist is that the universe seems to have 3 options; a "big crunch", a "big rip", or a "big freeze."
"Despite the poetic beauty of fire, however, current observations favor an icy end to our universe – a Big Freeze. Scientists believe that we live in a spatially flat universe whose expansion is accelerating due to the presence of dark energy; however, the total energy density of the cosmos is most likely less than or equal to the so-called “critical density,” so there will be no Big Rip. Instead, the contents of the universe will eventually drift prohibitively far away from each other and heat and energy exchange will cease. The cosmos will have reached a state of maximum entropy, and no life will be able to survive."
http://www.universetoday.com/84485/cosmology-101-the-end/#ixzz2fmROfSjt
http://www.universetoday.com/84485/cosmology-101-the-end/#ixzz2fmROfSjt
With the Big Crunch it is easy to see how the cycle of Big Bangs would repeat itself. With the other options everything just fades to black and energy becomes equalized across infinity. They all end in "nothing." But that "nothing" really isn't nothing, is it? We know it's actually just a bunch of overlapping energy fields. These fields should in theory still be there even after any of these scenarios. Purely as conjecture, perhaps this has already happened before and we see the effects as Dark Matter and Dark Energy."
Scientists have a pretty good understanding of the standard model of quantum mechanics but have gone one step further into something called Quantum Field Theory. Most people haven't heard about QFT as physicists don't talk about it when they talk to the general public about quantum mechanics. A critical component of QFT is the Higgs Boson. With the recent discovery of the Higgs in 2012 at CERN, providing the scientific evidence behind the theory. The key thing to know about the Higgs, is that its main purpose is to break symmetry.
Scientists have a pretty good understanding of the standard model of quantum mechanics but have gone one step further into something called Quantum Field Theory. Most people haven't heard about QFT as physicists don't talk about it when they talk to the general public about quantum mechanics. A critical component of QFT is the Higgs Boson. With the recent discovery of the Higgs in 2012 at CERN, providing the scientific evidence behind the theory. The key thing to know about the Higgs, is that its main purpose is to break symmetry.
"The Higgs field: so important it merited an entire experimental facility, the Large Hadron Collider, dedicated to understanding it. This mysterious field is on average non-zero, suffusing the universe almost like an invisible fluid, affecting the masses of the known elementary particles."
http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/the-known-apparently-elementary-particles/the-known-particles-if-the-higgs-field-were-zero/
http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/the-known-apparently-elementary-particles/the-known-particles-if-the-higgs-field-were-zero/
Here's a short 12 minute TEDx talk by Garrett Lisi at TEDxMaui 2013, that covers the Higgs Field more graphically and which proposes a unified field theory combining particle physics and Albert Einstein's theory of gravitation with the mathematics of geometry, specifically the E8 Lie Group. He will explain things very simply and is an amazing speaker. Also take notice near the end how he won't tell you what his conclusion is, not on such a short presentation at least. But I think by the end of these papers we will actually cover the conclusion he may have reached.
"The field is the only reality." ~ Albert Einstein
Once everything settles down you will have a very 'default value' symmetrical energy state, much like what is thought to have existed before the big bang. One would think that default state would be "zero", but "zero" or "nothing," can not exist can it? If it existed...it wouldn't be nothing. I know, right now you're saying "come again?" So let me put it this way. There's a point, like the big bang's "singularity", in QFT's. But this one comes with a way of being tested....verifiable. Scientific. That point is called the "Zero-Point-Field", or "Higgs Field" and at this point in quantum physics something most peculiar happens. "Nothing"....creates "Something." And it happens all the time, all around you. Even inside you. The easiest way to explain QFT is to imagine Quantum Physics in reverse. Instead of starting with the assumption that particles exist within these fields of energy all around us and throughout the universe, you start with only the field, and then apply quantum mechanics to that field, and what comes out are particles.
"Nothing can create something all the time due to the laws of quantum mechanics, and it's - it's fascinatingly interesting." ~ Lawrence M. Krauss
To explore this idea further here is Sean Carrol of CalTech with "Particles, Fields and The Future of Physics" a 1 hour 40 minute lecture, with associated PowerPoint presentation, given at Fermilab about this very idea and how the Higgs Boson was a crucial discovery, and what we can expect of physics next. It even makes reference to the Insane Clown Posse at one point. I do not suggest skipping this lecture. You'll notice about 35 minutes in he will cover the Zero-Point-Field, the only field in space that is nonzero at all times. This is the field creating "something" out of "nothing" constantly.
As a testament to how science continues to march forward, just this past September in 2013 scientists made a major breakthrough in Quantum Mechanics by discovering the "amplituhedron," a multi-dimensional jewel-like object the drastically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and "significantly advances a decades-long effort to reformulate quantum field theory."