No science and no philosophy or theology has still got its head around the something from nothing problem.
This is a very handy subterfuge often used in science and mathematics. When looking for something unknown, zero can always be converted into the sum of something and not-something. So it is always possible to imagine what the something is, evoke it from zero and claim that the not-something exists but cannot be found.
0 = X + ~X
Anything can be derived from nothing provided its negative counter-part can also be tolerated (in absentia if necessary).
We observe matter.
We haven’t a clue as to where this matter came from. So we devise the concept of matter and an equivalent amount of anti-matter at the origin of everything. But we cannot find this anti-matter in sufficient quantities to negate all the matter we observe. The global nothing is not preserved. That leads to the next subterfuge. It was all energy to begin with. Some of that energy converted itself into matter. That does not quite explain where that energy came from. Of course “nothing” might have decomposed into lumps of energy and of not-energy. The energy, it is then surmised, is that which is driving the expansion of the universe or the inflation of the universe or both. The lumps of not-energy are more elusive. Where that might be is not yet part of the next subterfuge.
nothing can be anything
This is a powerful technique but still a subterfuge. The existence of matter here in our universe can always be balanced by antimatter somewhere else such that a total nothing can be maintained. But matter and antimatter when they meet annihilate each other creating energy (according to E=mc2). Now that creates the puzzle of where energy came from. But that is easily solved by creating the concept of negative energy. Energy here can be balanced by negative energy there. Negative energy is a concept used in physics to explain the nature of certain fields, including the gravitational field and various quantum field effects.
Modern physics and cosmology are based on the fundamental premise that the Greater Universe is a Great Big Zero.
Of course some resolve the something from nothing problem by invoking a Creator. The same technique (or subterfuge) is also available to theology. But just as resolving the matter/antimatter created energy then leads to negative energy, the invoking of a Creator needs the conjuring of anti-Creators. A Creator here balanced by a Destroyer there. In Hinduism, for example, Brahma is the Creator balanced by Shiva the Destroyer. (Vishnu is the preserver and is in balance anyway). One problem for most religions and theologies is that they must create Devils subservient or inferior to their gods. Theologies collapse if devils are taken to be equally powerful, but negative, gods. Satan, for example, is a fallen angel where the angels were created by God. Thus Satan is more a balance for the Son of God rather than a balance for God. (I ignore the inconsistencies of all-powerful gods incapable of controlling subservient devils).
Heavens need Hells. Gods lead necessarily to Devils. And,
Gods + Devils = Zero.
Related:
In 1928, British physicist Paul Dirac wrote down an equation that combined quantum theory and special relativity to describe the behaviour of an electron moving at a relativistic speed. The equation – which won Dirac the Nobel Prize in 1933 – posed a problem: just as the equation x2= 4 can have two possible solutions (x = 2 or x = −2), so Dirac’s equation could have two solutions, one for an electron with positive energy, and one for an electron with negative energy. But classical physics (and common sense) dictated that the energy of a particle must always be a positive number. Dirac interpreted the equation to mean that for every particle there exists a corresponding antiparticle, exactly matching the particle but with opposite charge. For example, for the electron there should be an “antielectron”, or “positron”, identical in every way but with a positive electric charge. The insight opened the possibility of entire galaxies and universes made of antimatter.But when matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate – disappearing in a flash of energy. The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter. So why is there far more matter than antimatter in the universe?
… In theory, a particle and its anti-particle (for example, a proton and an antiproton) have the same mass, but opposite electric charge and other differences in quantum numbers. For example, a proton has positive charge while an antiproton has negative charge.
A collision between any particle and its anti-particle partner leads to their mutual annihilation, giving rise to various proportions of intense photons (gamma rays), neutrinos, and sometimes less-massive particle-antiparticle pairs. The majority of the total energy of annihilation emerges in the form of ionizing radiation. If surrounding matter is present, the energy content of this radiation will be absorbed and converted into other forms of energy, such as heat or light. The amount of energy released is usually proportional to the total mass of the collided matter and antimatter, in accordance with the mass–energy equivalence equation, E=mc2.
Antimatter particles bind with each other to form antimatter, just as ordinary particles bind to form normal matter. For example, a positron (the antiparticle of the electron) and an antiproton (the antiparticle of the proton) can form an antihydrogen atom. The nuclei of antihelium have been artificially produced with difficulty, and these are the most complex anti-nuclei so far observed. Physical principles indicate that complex antimatter atomic nuclei are possible, as well as anti-atoms corresponding to the known chemical elements.
There is strong evidence that the observable universe is composed almost entirely of ordinary matter, as opposed to an equal mixture of matter and antimatter. This asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the visible universe is one of the great unsolved problems in physics. The process by which this inequality between matter and antimatter particles developed is called baryogenesis.
On the matter of matter (or how something came from nothing)
The k2p blog 