Discussion»Questions»Science and Technology» Something from nothing. Can nothing give birth to something? In a void filled with emptiness what exists? What can exist? How?
I am assuming this is not a political question. If it is, then please ignore my answer.
Think of it this way. The energy in "empty" space is zero, right? Physicists used to think this was true until quantum mechanics, The Uncertainty Principle of quantum mechanics says that the more accurately we can know the energy, the less accurately we know the time. And vice versa.
So the shorter the time period over which we make our measurement, the more uncertain is the value of the energy. This explains the existence of virtual particles. They can spontaneioulsly appear out of empty space, but over only a limited amount of time. For per Heisenberg's formula, a virtual electron and virtual positron, each of mass 9.11x10^^-31 Kg, can pop up and remain in existence for no longer than 3.22x10^^-22 seconds. One virtual particle has positive energy and one has negative energy, so the average energy remains zero.
So, yes, in this sense, something (virtual particles) can come from nothing (empty space). And physicists have speculated that the big bang was a quantum fluvtuation, effectively creating our universe.
