# Can something come from nothing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2002, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964 "2002-10-19T12:36:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2002, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/1 "2002-10-19T12:36:49Z")
I was searching for an old copy of a popular science magazine that had a small sentence in a history of 20th century scientists article. Someone realised apparantly that the universe could theoretically have come from nothing. Can it? (Explain in terms a layman can understand if possible please šŸ™‚ ) ---
**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:** [October 19, 2002, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/2 "2002-10-19T12:54:04Z")
Hmmmā€¦simple question huh? Hard to say really. We canā€™t know what came (or what was) before our Universeā€¦it is unknowable. There is something that goes too against the grain of logic to say that everything we see came from ā€˜nothingā€™. That smacks of magic or God (which begs the question where did God or the rules of magic come from?). However, you might define ā€˜nothingā€™ in different ways. ā€˜Emptyā€™ space isnā€™t all that empty. Virtual particles are popping in and out of existence all the time (this has been proven and isnā€™t speculation). Are they coming from nothing? It seems that way but there must be some underlyingā€¦somethingā€¦that allows this to happen so to my mind they come from somewhere. Of course, in the end you can seemingly play the game of what comes before each thing you see. Can you drill down infinitely and keep finding something that is a cause of something else? That seems a pretty hard pill to swallow too so maybe at some point you do have to say everything came from nothing. All that may not be an answer you are looking for and I donā€™t claim to know but maybe itā€™ll help some in thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Nishroch\_Order](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Nishroch\_Order](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nishroch_Order)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2002, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/3 "2002-10-19T12:58:44Z")
Philosophically, something does seem to must have came from nothing, which seems rather counter-intuitive. Science cannot help much here. And it dosenā€™t help much that the only clue weā€™ve got is that we ā€œexistā€(which still is a matter of debate) This is probably gonna end up in GD. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2002, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/4 "2002-10-19T17:48:57Z")
No, the point behind modern quantum theories is that there can never be ā€œnothingā€ in the sense that we usually use it. Complete emptiness violates the rules. The universe did come from ā€œsomething,ā€ in this case vacuum energy. Do a Google on that term and see what you come up with. ---
**Author:** ![Anomalocaris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b77776/32.png) [@Anomalocaris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anomalocaris)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2002, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/5 "2002-10-19T17:58:38Z")
Expano hit the spot. The laws of quantum physics oft more resemble religious dogma or Buddhist philosophy more than science, but trust the experts; there is substance to them. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/6 "2002-10-20T00:17:00Z")
Wouldnā€™t it be easier to just say that something always was? After all, in Christianity, God always was and didnā€™t just pop up from nothing. Same could be said about all the ā€œmatterā€ in the universe. It always was. In some form or another. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/7 "2002-10-20T02:56:11Z")
This is almost the quintessential Great Debate, so Iā€™ll move this thread over to the appropriate forum. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/8 "2002-10-20T03:35:58Z")
My girfriend always manages to make something out of nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/9 "2002-10-20T05:30:26Z")
Not FROM nothing (in the way I might be said to have come from Boise), just came. šŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/10 "2002-10-20T05:36:27Z")
In agreement with **Whack-a-Mole** , I can with complete confidence I tell you that the answer to this question presently unknowable. Therefore, to fill in this gap in your understanding of existence you are left with two very attractive options: religion or science, faith or facts. Thatā€™s not to say that the two are mutually exclusive, they often appear concurrently, but if either is taken to its extreme conflicts do arise. If you go the faith route you have to make several assumptions and stick to them firmly. If you opt for science you have to accept that some questions havenā€™t been factually answered yet, but you get to be more flexible. Iā€™m a science person myself. Right now we lack sufficient data regarding the birth of the universe to make any reliable theory. The Big Bang and a few other theories are the most elaborate guesses we have mustered so far, but they are by no means reliable. I am for one reason or another most comfortable with a theory of a ā€˜Multiverseā€™ that exists independent of time where an infinity of universes are popping into existence at all times. But only because itā€™s a sexy new theory, as soon as something newer and sexier comes along Iā€™ll drop it like a bad habit. Agnostics and atheists can be so unemotional about their ideologies. šŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/11 "2002-10-20T05:40:21Z")
ā€œNothing from nothing leaves nothing, and nothing is what youā€™re gonna get from me.ā€ ā€”Billy Preston ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/12 "2002-10-20T06:16:54Z")
Itā€™s also important, when discussing Big Bang Cosmology, to remember that just because we say that the universe ā€œbeganā€ some 14 billion years ago, that doesnā€™t mean that there was nothing ā€œbeforeā€ the universe existed. The beginning of the universe was, after all, also the beginning of time. ā€œBeforeā€ the universe existed, time didnā€™t exist either. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/13 "2002-10-20T06:24:41Z")
ā€¦ and I donā€™t just mean that ā€œtime didnā€™t exist before the universe existedā€ in a philosophical tree-falling-in-a-forest sense. I mean that time really, really, **really** didnā€™t exist before the universe existed. If the entire mass of the universe was originally contained in an infinitely-small singularity, it would have been a supermassive black hole, with its own event horizon, right? Well, guess what. The gravity at or inside a black holeā€™s event horizon is so strong that **time dilation due to general relativity** is infinite. Time doesnā€™t move at all. Hence, we can only start counting time from the moment the universe expanded to where it was no longer dense enough to have its own event horizon. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/14 "2002-10-20T06:28:02Z")
BTW, the radius of the event horizon for an arbitrary black hole (called the Schwarzchild Radius) is 3 km times the black holeā€™s mass in solar masses. If the total mass of the universe were, say, 10[sup]18[/sup] solar masses, its Schwarzchild Radius during the Big Bang would have been 3 x 10[sup]18[/sup] km, or a little less than 100,000 parsecs. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/15 "2002-10-20T06:41:43Z")
Virtual particles happen all the time, so, in response to the OP, something does (very briefly) come out of nothing. My understanding is that there are theories explaining the greater than expected expansion rate of the universe that include a type of energy that counterbalances that of the mass of the universe - so it might be that the sum total of energy in the universe is 0. This means that the universe coming from ā€œnothingā€ does not violate the laws of thermodynamics - assuming they held in the singularity. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/16 "2002-10-20T10:51:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Someone realised apparantly that the universe could theoretically have come from nothing. Can it? No. Period. Despite what Voyager said, ā€œnothingā€ implies the absence of any mechanism by which something can arise. Merely calling a particle ā€œvirtualā€ does not bridge our ignorance gap. It ought to be said that we arenā€™t sure how virtual particles arise, and not that virtual particles arise from nothing. It is important to understand here that, if you are a materialist, you _must_ posit that the universe is eternal. And if you do that, then you must be prepared to explain why entropy is not already complete. ---
**Author:** ![MrThompson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MrThompson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrThompson)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/17 "2002-10-20T11:19:36Z")
My answer: no. Iā€™m totally steady stateā€¦ (prepares to run before someone challenges me) On the scale of an inifinity of universes I believe that the universe has been going forever and will go on forever. Nothing else makes sense to me. I am quite prepared to accept that this is probably a dogmatic assertion with no evidence whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![MSU\_1978](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@MSU\_1978](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MSU_1978)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/18 "2002-10-20T12:34:12Z")
We all know that matter can be coverted to energy by Einsteinā€™s famous equation, as happens in the sun and nuclear power. But does the reverse ever happen? Is is possible for energy to be converted to matter? This would be the only way the something could be made from nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/19 "2002-10-20T12:50:57Z")
Energy is not nothing. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2002, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964/20 "2002-10-20T12:59:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*ā€¦It is important to understand here that, if you are a materialist, you _must_ posit that the universe is eternal. And if you do that, then you must be prepared to explain why entropy is not already complete. \*\* Perhaps our universe is part of a larger eternally existing entity like [Platonia](http://www.platonia.com/) where all possible histories of the universe exist - without any change. Apparently Hawking believes that our universe has multiple histories that branch out like a tree each time a quantum event happensā€¦ we exist in one point of those different histories. Iā€™m not sure if Hawking believes that time doesnā€™t actually exist thoughā€¦ Maybe there is an eternally existing mother universe that is the stage where baby universes eternally are born and then dieā€¦ though there would be an infinite regression of timeā€¦ in the Platonia theory there is no infinite regression of time though (which happens if there is an eternally distant past) - in Platonia, the starting point of all of the alternative histories start with the same big bang. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-something-come-from-nothing/132964.md?page=2)