Reply to thread

If you allow me to butt in on the challenge to Dawkins, actually science doesn't say that. Science has clearly demonstrated the existence of virtual particles, where, in lay terms, energy can be borrowed from the future to create particles which annihilate and return that same energy to the past. "Nothing", i.e. the vacuum is swarming with virtual particles.


As far as the universe, it was known dozens of years ago that the negative potential energy of gravitation in the entire universe is about equal to the positive mass energy of the all the stars, etc. The two energies cancel out to zero (within experimental error), so it is not out of the question that the universe did come from nothing. It has been proposed that at the singularity of the big bang, a swarm of virtual particles were permanently created, where the total energy of the creation remained at zero and did not violate the laws of physics, although the singularity itself is still a mystery.


I know you are trying to embarrass Dawkins with a mystery, but you will have to use a different one. And thank you for the complement.


Back
Top