# Begaining of the universe.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/begaining-of-the-universe/114153>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 15, 2002, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/begaining-of-the-universe/114153 "2002-06-15T02:55:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/begaining-of-the-universe/114153/21 "2002-06-18T16:43:05Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by ZenBeam \*  
> \*\ ***Ring** , do you have a cite for this? \*\*

I’m not **Ring** but hopefully he won’t mind…

From [The Astronomical Society of the Pacific](http://www.astrosociety.org/pubs/mercury/31_02/nothing.html):

> [@](#):
>
> In the inflationary theory, matter, antimatter, and photons were produced by the energy of the false vacuum, which was released following the phase transition. All of these particles consist of positive energy. This energy, however, is exactly balanced by the negative gravitational energy of everything pulling on everything else. In other words, the total energy of the universe is zero!

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**Author:** ![JS\_Princeton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JS\_Princeton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JS_Princeton)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/begaining-of-the-universe/114153/22 "2002-06-18T18:57:04Z")

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Ring, true to the theorists, has basically stated a supposition that a lot of theoretical cosmologists have good reason to believe… that the universe’s net energy is zero. That would make things a lot simpler and explain a lot in our present universe. While inflation (or quintessece) looks like an excellent possibility, technically the jury is still out as to whether or not the parameter omega (which is rougly the ratio of the different energies of the universe) is one. We just don’t have enough observational evidence to say for certain at this point… and our theoretical models are really still in their formulation stages. There is good evidence from certain observations today that inflation did happen, but I don’t think it is scientifically honest to say it quite as matter-of-factly as Ring does.

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