I just want to say, sir: This is the most coherent and illuminating response to particle physics that I have ever in my entire life heard of.chownah wrote:I think there is a gap in the information here about the recently discovered something that came from nothing. Scientists have a a very complicated theory that explains the tiny bits of stuff that make up bigger bits of stuff that make up our world...they actually have more than one theory but the popular and presently most successful one at predicting what will happen when certain conditions exist at that very very small scale is called quantum science. The theory itself is a thicket of mathematical equations which have evolved over time and their evolution is driven by the need to accout for the results of experiments conducted at that very very small scale. Something that surprises non-scientists is that when you have such a complicated set of equations which explains things that you have seen you can take those equations and see consequences of their structure which allows you to predict things that should happen if the equations are indeed correct in modeling the behavior....so....scientists analyse various aspects of these equations looking for something they can predict and then they construct new experiments trying to find what their analysis of the equations has predicted. This is basically the driving force in particle physics today and will almost assuredly be for the forseeable future.
Anyway....some scientists looked at the equations and said that if they are to hold true then there need to be particles spontaneously arising in pairs out of space where no particles were before. I know this seems like gibberish but that is what they predicted. The problem is that these particles recombine so fast and existed in such a small space that there was no known way to detect them.....until recently when an experiment was constructed for the purpose of detecting them. The theoretical idea behind the experiment was that a device was made so that if there were no spontaneous particles present then one thing should happen but if a certain kind of particle was present (and which would not be present unless it spontaneously arose) then something else would happen.......when they tried it the "something else" happened and this is taken as a confirmation of the existence of the particle and the only way that particle could have been there was by spontaneously arising.
So.....since scientists have alway conceived of empty space as being...well...EMPTY...and by empty they meant that there was nothing at all there of any kind....then for a particle to emerge from this nothingness of the present view of empty space this means that something came out of nothing. Now it could be that scientists will re-evaluate their ideas of "empty space" so that it is not empty but that there are things there that have not been detected. After all the concept of "dark matter" and "dark energy" are relatively new and while there is alot of evidence to support their existence neither has been directly detected as existing in any particular region of space so I suppose (my views) it is possible that they pervade all of space but are simply not detected and these spontaneously arising pairs of virtual particles might turn out to be the first evidence of a way to directly interact with dark matter or dark energy....I guess....but I don't know for sure.....I'm just a rice farmer....I have a much better understanding about how to grow rice or cow peas.....
chownah
I have discussed particle physics and related topics with so many people and read so many studies and spent so many whiles drawing diagrams on walls. I don't know how you articulated it so directly and so intuitively, but you have done something special and important, and I would like to recognize that. I'm also saving what you have said here to put in my collections. Thank you.