On March 30, 2016 I posted, on this blog,[1] "Quantum Particles Do not Prove a universe from Nothing." The post was backed by sources such as Scientific American, David Albert, Even Hawking's Center for Theoretical Cosmology[2]Even so there are atheists telling me it's wrong. I dispute this. Rather than being wrong I think is couches it's terms in the parlance of an old theory. Because it doesn't explain things in the jargon of the newly accepted theory skeptics have an appropriate juncture at which they can charge it with being wrong because it appears out moded.
The major issue is that virtual particles (VPs) do not really emerge from nothing uncased at lest there's no proof that they do. This issue revolves around the emergence of VPs from true actual nothing, that is the lack of any thing at all. I will bracket discussion for this paper of why the scenario of origin must begin with this state of true nothing[3]
What is it about the parlance of that previous post that is outmoded? That article is based upon the Scientific American article that says VP's are produced when regular particles collide and thus while they do appear from no previous VP they are not appearing from a state of total true nothing.
Quantum mechanics allows, and indeed requires, temporary violations of conservation of energy, so one particle can become a pair of heavier particles (the so-called virtual particles), which quickly rejoin into the original particle as if they had never been there. If that were all that occurred we would still be confident that it was a real effect because it is an intrinsic part of quantum mechanics, which is extremely well tested, and is a complete and tightly woven theory--if any part of it were wrong the whole structure would collapse.
But while the virtual particles are briefly part of our world they can interact with other particles, and that leads to a number of tests of the quantum-mechanical predictions about virtual particles. [4]This is what is now supposed to be wrong, it is said that particles don't collide, to from VP but they are formed by the uncertainty principle (Heisenberg). We know that particles are not really little balls. So the image conjured by talk of particles colliding, that of children playing marbles,is not really analogous. The actual process is very complex it really boils down to an exchange of mathematical equations. One problem that makes it more acute is that the notion of particles has been discorded. It is not factually incorrect one metaphor replacing another and the new metaphor will someday be replaced in turn. At the moment it appears that talk of particles is old hat and misleading while the new metaphor makes the illusion that VPs are coming out of nothing.In reality, however, the original expatiation I gave in the other article is as close to right.The fact that VPs are not coming from true nothing is not refuted by the new more hip field theory.
Quantum Field theory is Just the latest in a long line of attempts to replace God with the powers of God detached from God's consciousness. "since the scientific revolution of the 17th century, what physics has given us in the way of candidates for the fundamental laws of nature have as a general rule simply taken it for granted that there is, at the bottom of everything, some basic, elementary, eternally persisting, concrete, physical stuff."[5] Newton said it was Material particles (going back to the Greeks, smaller and smaller bits of matter) at the end of the 19th century they said material particles and electromagnetic fields. As Albert points all all physics is and has always been about how that elementary stuff is arranged.[6] In this latest turn they just do away with the bits of matter,they aren't really particles at all.
Let's choose a field theory image to replace the marbles. We might think of field as a kind background radiation. because it is throughout the entire universe, everywhere. Rather than balls particles are described as little bits of field, there are scientists and science reporters talking of it this way.[7][8] These bits of field exchange values and thus identities with each other. This is what makes one speak of particles colliding. That is a metaphor as is exchanging values,All we really know is something is going on in mathematical equations.Field theorists write that into talk of exchange of identity of the "bits of field" they call particles.
Particle physics as we know it today began with the ideas of Hideki Yukawa in 1935. Physicists had long been concerned with how forces are transmitted, finding the concept of fields, such as electric and magnetic fields to be very useful. A field surrounds an object and carries the force exerted by the object through space. Yukawa was interested in the strong nuclear force in particular and found an ingenious way to explain its short range. His idea is a blend of particles, forces, relativity, and quantum mechanics that is applicable to all forces. Yukawa proposed that force is transmitted by the exchange of particles (called carrier particles). The field consists of these carrier particles.[9]All of this is nice and cleansed and washed spotless by the good people who write text books and popular science style articles, but in reality where the people who really know what is what about field theory all the mathematically free popular layman-level talk about QM and God-free universe is bull shit. Not that field theory is BS no no,I do not say that but the idea that science magically proves that the universe did or could spring into existence out of actual true nothing with no external force or power helping it, is BS!
The best proof of this is a source called Physics Stack exchange This site is for serious researchers of all levels. They have high school kids to Professors who research discussing everything. Let's look at what some of the professors say. A poster who is apparently a layman asks about Krauss's book The Universe From Nothing, and his assertion that VP's pop out of nothing."I am reading the book of Lawrence Krauss "A universe out of nothing", where he explained that the vacuum is not empty. "
- Is the vacuum empty or is it not?
- Are there particles in the vacuum and can they create a universe?
- But when virtual particles are just a mathemacical "trick" to calculate something, what does Lawrence Krauss mean?
- What is the matter about the vacuum?[10]
Another poster, Arnold Neumaier:
The vacuum is "empty" in every precise sense of the word. What we call "particles" in quantum field theory are states created by so-called annihilation and creation operators, which represent "substracting" and "adding" a particle of a certain type to a state. The free vacuum is by definition precisely the state from which you cannnot substract anything, hence it is "empty". The interacting vacuum is by definition the lowest-lying energy state, but we can't talk about particles for interacting states, so it's meaningless to ask if it is "empty"....The "boiling brew of particles" is a misinterpretation of what so-called vacuum bubbles mean. They are the Feynman diagrams that contribute to the energy of the interacting vacuum state, and if internal lines of such diagrams described actual particles, then these diagrams would mean a continuous creation and annihilation of particles in the vacuum. But the internal lines of Feynman diagrams are not associated to actual particles states (i.e. no creation/annihilation operator of the free theory belongs to them), so this is nonsense. There are no particles in the vacuum and they don't create a universe....He is misinterpreting Feynman diagrams to give laymen reading the book a magical and mysterious, but math-free picture of what quantum field theory is about. This picture is almost completely wrong.It's the lowest-lying energy state of the theory, and the start for so-called perturbation theory. Not much more.[11]
The only way the usual dynamical language for virtual particles is justified by the theory is as purely figurative analogy in ”virtual reality”, useful for informal talk about complicated formulas and for superficial summaries in lectures capturing the imagination of the audience.This has to be kept in mind when reading in professional scientific publications statements involving virtual particles. Otherwise many statements become completely misleading, inviting a magical view of microphysics and weird speculation, without the slightest support in theory or experiment.[12]Two things we need to know to make sense of what was just said. First, wen physicists speak of :"nothing" they don't mean that in the sense most people use it. They mean something very different, Understanding this will tell us what they mean by Qm vacuum. ohnRennie tells us:
In Physics "nothing" is generally taken to be the lowest energy state of a theory. We wouldn't normally use the word "nothing" but instead describe the lowest energy state as the "vacuum". I can't think of an intuitive way to describe the QM vacuum because all the obvious analogies have "something" instead of nothing "nothing", so I'll do my best but you may still find the idea hard to grasp. That's not just you - everybody finds it hard to grasp..[13]Nothing is the lowest level energy state in a theory, so that would mean an individual particle is "nothing." Rennie goes on to talk about an analogy,if you could turn off the Qm field,there would still be fluctuation, This is vacuum flux, it is the Qm vacuum. it means there are still "particles" messing around.
....The key point is that when I say "turn the field down" I mean reduce the energy to the lowest it will go i.e. you can't make the energy of the electric field any lower. By definition this is what we call the "vacuum" even though it isn't empty (i.e. it contains the fluctuations). It isn't possible to make the vacuum any emptier because the fluctuations are always present and you can't remove them.[14]The skeptic merely says there are particles they are popping out of nothing. The problem is the physicists include the particles as part of nothing, there's no empirical observations that they are coming out of real nothing not just coming from some primordial field; in other words a group of more particles,
That does not mean that Krauss doesn't understand or doesn't know what he's saying. He knows but what he is saying is really a faith statement. He wants us to think his statement is a precise factual understanding of the universe but it is actually nothing more than a faith statement based upon facts but those facts do not include empirical knowledge of the origin of the universe, he's really just discussing an educated guess.
Even if we assume field theory as a literally true statement of what happens with sub atomic particles it can't be the case that they actually do emerge from true nothing. The reason is very simple and it is assumed by the theory.The theory itself assumes that prior conditions exist, a framework in which the things emerge. They may not have direct causes in the conventional sense but they clearly do not just pop into existence out of actual noting. There are prior conditions without which the particles would not be possible. Those conditions have to be accounted for. The frame work consists mainly of Time, physical law, ad what they now call field,or Vacuum flux which means more particles.
"He [Krauss] acknowledges (albeit in a parenthesis, and just a few pages before the end of the book) that everything he has been talking about simply takes the basic principles of quantum mechanics for granted."[15] The term"nothing" is erroneous since by that term physicists do not mean what regular people mean by the term.They do not mean the absence of anything at all. "For a half century, physicists have known that there is no such thing as absolute nothingness, and that the vacuum of empty space, devoid of even a single atom of matter, seethes with subtle activity. "[16] I have quoted at least three physicists saying Krauss is wrong his statements can't be taken literally. I think a good term for what they are saying is that his statements are faith based statements or atheist dogma based upon field theory. The three physicists are A Curious Mind, Arnold Neumaier, and Paul Matt Sutter, I close with statement by David Albert the philosopher with Ph.d in physics, from his review of Krauss:
The fundamental physical laws that Krauss is talking about in “A Universe From Nothing” — the laws of relativistic quantum field theories — are no exception to this. The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields. And the fundamental laws of this theory take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of those fields are physically possible and which aren’t, and rules connecting the arrangements of those fields at later times to their arrangements at earlier times, and so on — and they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story.[17]Atheists are making a faith statement when they assert the particles come from actual nothing, There is no reason to assume that because there is no empirical scientific evidence to establish true actual nothing,nothing in that statement when spoken by physics does not mean absence of things. Things must be explained.
Be sure and read additional quotes in comment section.
watch the video which is a good (although very innovated) explanation of what all this means,
Sources
[1]
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2016/03/quantum-particles-do-not-prove-universe.html
[2] see FN 2 Paper cited,Center for Theoretical Cosmology, static website, University of Cambridge (no date cited)
http://www.ctc.cam.ac.uk/outreach/origins/quantum_cosmology_one.php
(accessed 3/8/18)
Stephan Hawking is associated with the CTC.This statement is more admission than documentation. It admits that quantum theory might not pertain to the universe as a whole. After all the theory has only been validated under normal conditions of space/time, temperature and the like. We have no idea if it still applies at the big bang expansion where the laws of physics seem to be suspended, temperature and time approach infinity.
[4] Gordon Kane, “Are Virtual Particles Really Constantly Popping In and Out of existence? Or Are They Merely a Mathematical Bookkeeping Device For Quantum Mechanics?” Scientific American, (Oct. 9, 2006) on line version URL: http://www.scientific american.com/article/are-virtual-particles-rea/ accessed 10/12/15
[5] David Albert, "On The Origin of Everything: A Universe from Nothing By Lawrence Krauss.." New York Times Sunday Book Review. (MARCH 23, 2012).
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html
(accessed 3/10/18)
[6] Ibid
[7] Paul Matt Sutter, "What Are Virtual Particles?" a video on you tube posted by and introduced by Fraser Cain (posted Jun 13, 2016 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn5PMa5xRq4
(accessed 3/10/18)
[8] ________, "'virtual' partocles are just 'Wiggles' in the Electromagnetic field." Live Science (August 22, 2016)
https://www.livescience.com/55833-what-are-virtual-particles.html
(accessed 3/10/18)
teaches at Ohio state
[9] "The Yukawa Particle and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle Revisited." BC Open Text book, produced by BC Campus.no date indicated
https://opentextbc.ca/physicstestbook2/chapter/the-yukawa-particle-and-the-heisenberg-uncertainty-principle-revisited/
(accessed 3/9/18)
[10] Qmechanic "Virtual Particles Real? Virtual Particles Create a universe?"Physics Stack Exchange, blog published Stack Exchange Inc. (Sept 7,2015)
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/205674/virtual-particles-real-virtual-particles-create-a-universe
(accessed 3/10/18)
"Physics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for active researchers, academics and students of physics."
Founded in 2008, Stack Overflow is the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. More than 50 million professional and aspiring programmers visit Stack Overflow each month to help solve coding problems, develop new skills, and find job opportunities.Stack Overflow partners with businesses to help them understand, hire, engage, and enable the world's developers. Our products and services are focused on developer marketing, technical recruiting, market research, and enterprise knowledge sharing. Learn more about our business solutions here.[11] A curious Mind (moderator of stack exchange) Ibid.
[12]Arnold Neumaier, Stack Exchange, Ibid.
Neumaier Lectures at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, University of Vienna.
[13] John Rennie, ''What is meant by Nothing in Physics./ Quatum Physics?" Physics Stack Exchange (June 29, 2012)
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/30973/what-is-meant-by-nothing-in-physics-quantum-physics
(accessed 3/29/2012)
Rennie, undergrad degree Cambridge in Qm Chemistry, PhD, also at Cambridge, in solid state photo chemistry. After finishing my PhD I worked as a colloid scientist for Unilever Research.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Albert, op. cit.
[16] Malcolm W. Brown, Physicists Comfirm Powerof Nothing, Measuring Force or universla Flux." New York Times (Jan 21,1997)
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/21/science/physicists-confirm-power-of-nothing-measuring-force-of-universal-flux.html
(accessed 3/10/18)
[17] Albert op cit
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