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A Universe from Nothing

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A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing
Softcover edition
AuthorLawrence M. Krauss
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPhysics
Cosmology
PublisherFree Press
Publication date
January 10, 2012
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Softcover), e-book
Pages224 pp
ISBN978-1-4516-2445-8
523.1/8
LC ClassQB981 .K773 2012
Preceded byQuantum Man 
Followed byThe Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far 

A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing is a non-fiction book by the physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, initially published on January 10, 2012, by Free Press. It discusses modern cosmogony and its implications for the debate about the existence of God. The main theme of the book is the claim that "we have discovered that all signs suggest a universe that could and plausibly did arise from a deeper nothing—involving the absence of space itself and—which may one day return to nothing via processes that may not only be comprehensible but also processes that do not require any external control or direction."[1][2]

Publication

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The book ends with an afterword by Richard Dawkins in which he compares the book to On the Origin of Species — a comparison that Krauss himself called "pretentious".[3] Christopher Hitchens had agreed to write a foreword for the book prior to his death but was too ill to complete it.[4] To write the book, Krauss expanded material from a lecture on the cosmological implications of a flat expanding universe he gave to the Richard Dawkins Foundation at the 2009 Atheist Alliance International conference.[4][5] The book appeared on The New York Times bestseller list on January 29, 2012.[6]

Reception

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Praise

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Caleb Scharf, writing in Nature, said that "it would be easy for this remarkable story to revel in self-congratulation, but Krauss steers it soberly and with grace".[7]

Ray Jayawardhana, Canada Research Chair in observational astrophysics at the University of Toronto, wrote for The Globe and Mail that Krauss "delivers a spirited, fast-paced romp through modern cosmology and its strong underpinnings in astronomical observations and particle physics theory" and that he "makes a persuasive case that the ultimate question of cosmic origin – how something, namely the universe, could arise from nothing – belongs in the realm of science rather than theology or philosophy".[8]

In New Scientist, Michael Brooks wrote, "Krauss will be preaching only to the converted. That said, we should be happy to be preached to so intelligently. The same can't be said about the Dawkins afterword, which is both superfluous and silly."[9]

Critique

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George Ellis, in an interview in Scientific American, said that "Krauss does not address why the laws of physics exist, why they have the form they have, or in what kind of manifestation they existed before the universe existed (which he must believe if he believes they brought the universe into existence). Who or what dreamt up symmetry principles, Lagrangians, specific symmetry groups, gauge theories, and so on? He does not begin to answer these questions." He criticized the philosophical viewpoint of the book, saying "It's very ironic when he says philosophy is bunk and then himself engages in this kind of attempt at philosophy."[10] But, as it was highlighted in the beginning, the book was neither based on theology nor on philosophy, but on science. Regarding the questions on the laws of physics, they have been addressed before the book was written,[11][12] and afterwards, [13][14] Regarding their existence, if Krauss' thesis in the book is correct, there have proposed diverse possibilities for our universe, after the popped-up proposed by Krauss due to a quantum fluctuation, the interaction between two primordial elements such as supermassive primordial blackholes (whether tachyonic or not, as unique two elements in the nothingness) could have led to the emergence of an everlasting (indeterminate) expanding universe, and baryonic spacetime region as observable universe in a shared coordinate region-like.[15] The question of the nothingness remains in the field of philosophy, but, indeed, the fundamental concept meaning the absence of anything or the opposite of something (or everything) paradoxically implies a rhetorical oxymoron to the subject matter. Yet, it might be argued that it can be a goal and a requirement for science as well as for the field in order to explain a theory of everything.[15] As a pleonasm and a contronym, aside from the enantiodromia Jung's principle applied as a natural equilibrium (everything coming from nothing as a natural running-course), if that nothingness is considered part of everything, should that nothing have a volume to harbor primitive elements and primordial events, infinite volumes have been described and proposed[16][17] but it also claimed that the dynamics of these infinite volumes were unknown, being estimated in the consideration of multiple or numerous infinite state-spaces.[18] And in that work, a (sic) "medium concise is provided, starting from an example ―not exactly solvable".[19] Even though it was not the purpose, both theories Krauss' and the aforementioned in the conformal cyclic cosmology together with Big Bang theory, might well make the existence of a nothingness unnecesary.[20][21]

In The New York Times, philosopher of science and physicist David Albert said the book failed to live up to its title; he said Krauss dismissed concerns about what Albert calls his misuse of the term nothing, since if matter comes from relativistic quantum fields, the question becomes where did those fields come from, which Krauss does not discuss.[22] In that regard, one may refer to the aforementioned regarding that topic. These are questions that have already been asked regarding the bouncing cosmology.[15] To direct them science has proposed conformal cyclic cosmology, within a universe can appear after the other by Roger Penrose, or one Big Bang after the other within the same universe, which, still less radical, is compatible with Roger Penrose's, keeping open the possibility of a primordial Big Bang nonetheless. Also, to the very beginning, a dual foamy structure for nothing and virtual quantum fluctuations happening at scales within and under Planck scale (with or without a box, since a box to constrain them would also be an oxymoron) called quantum foam has been proposed.[23] Quantum foam (or spacetime foam, or spacetime bubble) is a theoretical quantum fluctuation of spacetime on very small scales due to quantum mechanics. The theory predicts that at this small scale, particles of matter and antimatter are constantly created and destroyed. These subatomic objects are called virtual particles. Since there is no definitive reason that spacetime needs to be fundamentally smooth, it would be possible that instead, in an early stage of a protospace or before the existence of a protospace, a virtual spacetime would consist of many small, ever-changing regions in which space, time, and nothingness would be not definite, but fluctuating in a foam-like manner. The idea was devised by John Wheeler in 1955.

Commenting on the philosophical debate sparked by the book, the physicist Sean M. Carroll asked:

"Do advances in modern physics and cosmology help us address these underlying questions, of why there is something called the universe at all, and why there are things called 'the laws of physics,' and why those laws seem to take the form of quantum mechanics, and why some particular wave function and Hamiltonian? In a word: no. I don't see how they could. Sometimes physicists pretend that they are addressing these questions, which is too bad, because they are just being lazy and not thinking carefully about the problem. You might hear, for example, claims to the effect that our laws of physics could turn out to be the only conceivable laws, or the simplest possible laws. But that seems manifestly false. Just within the framework of quantum mechanics, there are an infinite number of possible Hilbert spaces, and an infinite number of possible Hamiltonians, each of which defines a perfectly legitimate set of physical laws. And only one of them can be right, so it's absurd to claim that our laws might be the only possible ones.

"Invocations of "simplicity" are likewise of no help here. The universe could be just a single point, not evolving in time. Or it could be a single oscillator, rocking back and forth in perpetuity. Those would be very simple. There might turn out to be some definition of "simplicity" under which our laws are the simplest, but there will always be others in which they are not. And in any case, we would then have the question of why the laws are supposed to be simple?

"Likewise, appeals of the form "maybe all possible laws are real somewhere" fail to address the question. Why are all possible laws real? And sometimes, on the other hand, modern cosmologists talk about different laws of physics in the context of a multiverse, and suggest that we see one set of laws rather than some other set for fundamentally anthropic reasons. But again, that's just being sloppy. We're talking here about the low-energy manifestation of the underlying laws, but those underlying laws are exactly the same everywhere throughout the multiverse.

"We are still left with the question of there are those deep-down laws that create a multiverse in the first place."[24]

Of course, that would imply the existence of a multiverse in the first place, something that scientists and physicists are starting to question[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] as well as their basis,[25][32][36][37][38][39][40] since their provability may be beyond the scope of science power and the scope of physics.[26][41][35] Indeed, there are people in science asking those questions, as well as directing them.[12][13][14][15][21] As aforementioned, the laws of physics might also (have been or) being changing and evolving over time,[12][13][14][42][43][44][45][46] including cosmological constants.[43][44][45][47] It is no surprise that within that very foamy region of the early dual quantum foam, that the interaction between virtual events, virtual subatomic particles emerging from quantum fluctuations with the very nothingness and in between them, the very laws of physics may change and acquiring oscillating foamy character. Nonetheless it is the interaction what has been proposed as the most fundamental.[21] So, in that scenery, it is absurd to claim that our laws might be the only possible ones, as Sean Carroll pointed out. Not only our universe could be just a single point, not evolving in time, or a single oscillator, rocking back and forth in perpetuity, but it has been proposed that it could be both, filling the gap for entropy one (the second), and feeding the universe regarding mass and energy or virtual particles and events (the first).[15] So, it is of no help the invocations of "simplicity", as it may well not be of any hope or help the split between two possibilities that are not necessary incompatible, or that are presented as incompatible. So, it might be that not only one of them can be right. Regarding these questions, there is a proposal tackling on the question of reality[21] since Einstein let it in a "jail" that he might have created for the philosopher and the next century in his work.[48][49][50][51][52] These underlying laws might well be the very interaction proposed by Krauss in this book and cycles proposed by Dirac,[12] Penrose[53][54][55] and other cyclic conformal cosmology proposals.[17][21][56] Regarding the question of the multiverse, and the Everett interpretation, a mild proposal for the evolution since the beginning, tackling therefore the question of the emergence from the nothingness and the virtual spacetime as not necessarily a closed or constraining box, has been presented regarding the topic of the multiverse and this book,[57] called quantum darwinism,[58][21][57] in which it is the running-course of the emergence of planets (as a random fluctuation between appearance and dissappearance of planets, producing a adaption-like and longer continuity, permanence, or persistence of planets that present certain qualities and may harbor life or be key to others, where some may harbor life), in a fast run-track that led to a current-state in which, at least, one planet called Earth can harbor human life, fulfilling the anthropic principle with no need for a multiverse.[21][57]

Therefore, the book may also be considered as fulfilling its main objectives, although a second edition tacking into account a few extensions and improvements could be of great help for humanity, and add some aid to the field and science at the same time that may extend the aims of the first edition.[1]

Dawkins afterword polemic

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Dawkings' afterword of the book have been criticized:[1]

"Why should Krauss drop the afterword written by Richard Dawkins? Simple: Dawkins is better than this. Whether you agree with him or not, one has to admit he is a very fine and capable writer. And this afterword is some of the worst writing he has ever erected. And I am a believer you should never want to read someone's worst work but only their finest. And this is far from his best of quill. And so because he is so good and this is not representative of his excellent writing ability, it is better to let this afterword go.*

*And get rid of this sentence: "Now, a century later we scientist can feel smug for having discovered the underlying expansion of the universe, the cosmic microwave background, dark matter, and dark energy." It is a mistake to use dark matter and dark energy as an accomplishment of how much science knows because scientists don't know what dark matter and dark energy are."[1]

Perhaps, a second edition of this book that has been also portrayed and recommended as a delicacy,[1] could open a "virtual quantum window" or opportunity for a better Dawkins' afterword of the new edition of the book:

"And while I said I would definitely recommend the consumption of this delicacy, I find this meal could have been made even better if only a few more ingredients had been added to it. Here are several things Krauss might think about changing if he ever writes a second edition of A Universe from Nothing".[1]

See also

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References

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  2. ^ Krauss, Lawrence M. (2012). A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing. New York: Free Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-1-4516-2445-8.
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