(September 10, 2013 at 5:22 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: My main issue is more with the way physicists are naming some things. Max mentions that Krauss talks about 'nothingness' having mass. But what Krauss has said (in other instances) is that empty space has mass, so clearly in that case he (and some other physicists) are calling empty space 'nothing' or 'nothingness'. When the terms are used properly, it's all well and good. However, some physicists (Krauss is the notable one) have made the mistake of pushing it too far. For example, he once said before (I'm paraphrasing) that science has shown that something can come from nothing in reference to the production of virtual particles. However, they come from (I believe) vacuum energy, which is clearly something (i.e it exists), so Krauss' usage is misleading at times. He (probably accidentally, as far as I know) is conflating the usage of the term nothing in physics with the usual meaning of the word, which is "no thing".
That's why it doesn't make sense to say that 'nothingness has mass', when he's referring to empty space, or virtual particles being creatio ex nihilo.
Nothing big, just a slight annoyance with that misleading usage.
One of the big challenges ahead I think will be to define nothing. Its not nearly as easy as it first appears. If, for example, it is within a field (magnetic / gravitational w.h.y.) its not nothing.
In defence of Krauss - he does show the work of another physicist looking inside a proton. Within the normally described nothingness part there's a shitload of stuff going on. If I remember correctly he also attributed 70% of the mass of the proton to this nothingness.
BTW - I am using nothingness - Krauss only ever describes it as nothing - this confused the hell out of me with lines like "nothing has mass".
I am hoping my clarification of terms doesn't change anything fundamental in the physics.
I cannot recall which physicist came up with the matter / anti-matter annihilation as an explanation - needless to say its not mine.
