(August 10, 2013 at 1:08 am)whateverist Wrote: Sorry to leave you hanging. I quit coming back to this thread when it became clear that the OP wasn't coming back. Just another shit-and-run bible-belter it would seem.
I completely agree with you that to make broad sweeping statements about there being no space and no time before the big bang is extremely loose scientific speculation and many have been guilty. Frankly I don't know that we will ever find a way to peer beyond the singularity event of which we are a part. It may be unique and final and involve everything coming from nothing, but I find that highly unlikely. I assume that there are preconditions for a singularity event and that there have been and will be more than one. That, of course, is not a scientific theory. It is pure speculation on a par with, but no better than, that of those who believe in everything from nothing but only once.
I've posted on this before. The Theory of Something from nothing is as sound as any other. It's mainly predicated on two widely accepted principles, one being the underlying symmetries in all Physical Constants (Noether's Theorem) - which also works for Quantum Theory as well. The other is Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking, largely built on the work by Nobel Physicist Yoichiro Nambu.
What's interesting and perhaps more telling is that a number of different fields of study are converging on the same conclusion, and we all know what this usually indicates.
Dr Stephan Dürr's work on the Standard Model (in particular the mass of hydrogen nuclei), Yoichiro Nambu's Broken Symmetry (which rather interestingly brings along with it The Laws of conservation of Energy, Momentum and even quantum spin among others), Igor Sokolov, John Nees and Gerard Mourou's work with high-energy electron beams, Victor Stenger, Stephen Hawking, Makoto Kobayashi, Toshihide Maskawa, etc.
Something from nothing is an established feature of the Quantum Vacuum, I accept this does not mean it's the right Theory for Universe Origins but with so much work pointing in this direction it's becoming harder to ignore. As you rightly pointed out we do not know the mechanics of the early Universe, but then that can be said of any Early Universe Theory, the unusual feature about the Something from Nothing Theory is the weight of convergence from across the fields of Physics.
The theory of something from nothing is not 'extremely loose scientific speculation', it is built on solid mathematical reasoning and experimental evidence. Observations by Maldacena, Ryu and Takayanagi and a rather elegant paper from Brian Swingle in 2009, Mark Van Raamsdonk has proposed that quantum entanglement is the fundamental ingredient underlying spacetime geometry. This, in turn, has led to further work from Juan Maldacena and Lenny Susskind.
As I've said all along, it is extremely difficult to get the Something from Nothing Theory across to people because of how difficult it is to explain in simple terms. Oversimplified it reads like metaphysics in Disneyland, but the alternative is to exclude those who don't have a working understanding of quantum mechanics and relativity.
There is no easy way to explain these concepts without seeming to be flippant and somewhat cavalier with Relativity, when neither is the case.
MM
