Can the Universe be created from Nothing

The universe cannot create itself from nothing.

This idea is actually was first proposed by a Physicist Edward Tryon of the Hunter College of the City University of New York. He published a paper in the British science journal Nature titled, “Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation? In this article he proposed that the universe could be nothing more that vacuum energy fluctuations. Tryon’s theory was rejected at the time. It was again resurrected in the 1980’s and it was again dismissed.

It has again been resuscitated by Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss in his best selling book “The Universe from Nothing: Why is there something rather than nothing.”

The problem with this “theory from nothing” is that it does not answer the fundamental question that it was intended to answer. The reason why the fundamental question is not answered is because Krauss and Tryon both redefined what nothing means.

The quantum fluctuation theory dismisses the idea of the energy in quantum fluctuations as being nothing instead of something. If there is one thing that Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 tells us is that energy is not just something but anything and everything. Everything that your senses can sense is because of energy.

The first problem with the theory that the universe was created from “nothing” is that energy is something not nothing.

Einstein’s theories have another problem with a universe from nothing. We can state this problem in the form of a question that it cannot answer. Where did this event happen?

When Einstein had his great aha moment standing with his good friend Baso looking at clocks in the distance. He reconfigured the whole concept of space and time. Before Einstein space and time were considered constance of nature. Time and space could not change and any speed was a possibility. After Einstein’s theory of relativity the speed of light was the fundamental constant of nature and space and time could change. After Einstein space and time became relative to the speed in which an object was traveling. In other words, space can change. Einstein made it possible for space not to exist at all.

So when Cosmologist speak of the universe contractracting. It is space itself that is contracting. It is this “fabric of space” that contains all the laws of nature and fundamental constants of this universe. A different universe does not have to have the same constants and laws of nature as this universe.

It is this thought that brings us to our second problem with Tyron’s (now Krauss’s) “Theory from Nothing”. There was no space for this quantum fluctuation to happen. At the present time there is no type of plausible static theory that can overcome the problem of entropy with the arrow of time pointing in one direction. In the case of our universe entropy (or the arrow of time) moves towards maximum entropy.

With this being said with regards to entropy and Einstein’s ideas of space and time, it generally understood that there could be nothing before the existence of our universe. No type of energy in any form, and no type of space in any form could have existed prior to the existence of our universe. This is the reason why Tryon’s theory was discarded as a likely candidate as a theory of origin of the universe. In the beginning there was no space for this quantum fluctuation to occur..

Sean Carroll in his book “From Eternity to here.” Attempts to describe the space in which this fluctuation could occur. In his theory he creates a mother universe in which the arrow of time runs in both directions.

But this theory has has it own problems. But that story we will leave for another question.