Recent advances in our study of "empty space" have led to new discoveries indicating that a vacuum is not nothing.
According to quantum theory, a vacuum, consisting of the space between subatomic particles of matter or between large gravitating bodies such as the earth and the sun, is not empty, but consists of vast amounts of positive and negative fluctuating energy. Thus out of a vacuum can be derived a number of unusual phenomena, including matter, antimatter, energy, and even the soul and spirit.
How can energy and matter come from nothing? The answer turns out to be, well, nothing is something.
This answer has relevance fro the appearance of the soul:
The soul, too, comes into existence in the same way.
The concept that a vacuum is not empty seems to be a paradox. If it is not empty, then what fills it? Physicists define a vacuum in very pragmatic terms ... It is what you have left after you have removed every bit of matter and energy from an enclosed container. When all energy and matter have been extraacted, seemingly magically, there is still something left.
What is left is very intersssting because one mutst revert to quantum physics to deal with it. Physicists call it zero-point-energy. The vacuum fluctuations of zero-point energy/mass conversion are in the background static on a mistuned radio or on a television screen when a station goes off the air the nuclear fusion reactions occurring in the interiors of the sun.
Generally, when we say we are observing matter, we are actually observing whether or not something is changing its energy. We call that something that changes energy matter. However, based on some very unusual arguments regarding space and time, that energy and matter were actually the same thing.
People believed matter was "stuff". It consisted of something. As science progressed, the search was for the ultimate stuff of minutest corners of space and of the tiniest fractions of time. Matching observed on a scale of inches and seconds, was actually mostly empty space with tiny bits of something called probability clouds filling that space. These clouds are fundamental particles "tendencies to exist" to somehow pop out of nothing and become coherent matter.
Matter's ability to cohere provides the stability needed to form atoms and molecules.
We now know that if enough added energy is present, empty space itself is capable of spontaneoously giving birth to bits of matter and antimatter that will persist for long periods. But even if extra energy is absent, the vacuum will spontaneously create electron-positron (the antimatter form of an electron) pairs and then quickly bring them together, causing them to vanish. We suspect the vacuum produces matter from the zero-point radiation field, or in other words, matter is just another temporary states of the fluctuating fields call the zero-point energy.
Zero-point energy wouldn't have even been thought of if it hadn't been for quantum physics. According to classical physics, things have energy. They are able to absorb and emit this energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Accordingly, once a source of radiation is turned off, the radiation field, filling any space it happebns to be passing through, just disappears.
Of course, if there are any reflecting devices such as mirrors, in that space, the radiation can be trapped between the mirrors, and if the mirrors are shiny and cold enough,the reflection can continue unabated for a long time. But eventually all of the classical radiation will be absorbed.
Not so for a quantum-physical radiation field. If you extract all energy from a vacuum and suck out every bit of matter, and even cool the vacuum to absolute zero temperature, an enormous amount of energy, call the zero-point energy in reference to that point on the absolute temperature scale will remain in the vacuum.
Let me give you another example of zero-point-energy. If you take a pendulum and set it swinging, it will oscillate for what seems to be a very long time. But eventually, it will lose all forms of visible energy and the amplitude of that swing will decay until the pendulum comes to rest. At least that is what we think happens when we envision the pendulum in terms of classical physics. But in quantum physics, that never quite happens. When the pendulum reaches its quietest moment, it will still be jiggling randomly about it's resting position. And even though we cannot observe this motion, for example, when looking at a large pendulum and it'ssurrounding environment are supercooled to the absolute zero of temperature.
Quantum jiggling is always present.
Quantum physics implies a basic fuzziness for all matter and energy. This blur appeara as slight fluctuations in the energies of positions of all atomic and subatomic matter. There is always a slight probability that any atom will change its energy unpredictably. When as atomic system reaches it's lowest energy, one would think that it would come to rest.
But this is not so.
Instead, the atom or system of atoms continues to jiggle around because of it's continual interaction with the zero-point-energy of nothing. This zero-point energy, although it may be impossible to measure directly, is also subject to the laws of quantum physics, and it, too, consists of random fluctuations. The amount of energy in those fluctuations is amazing. If one looks into a cube of space, slightly smaller than a die on a Las Vegas crap table (one cubic centimeter), one finds an energy equivalent of 10 grams of matter. That is a lot of mass/energy! Consider that the sun radiates aways only the equivalent of 5x10 grams, 5 millions tons of mass, every second, in order to provide you and me with light and heat.
That's a lot, but compared with 10 grams, it's is truly insignificant.
The Spiritual Universe
The Soul Trickster
What the Bleep, Do We Know!?
From the book, The Spiritual Universe
No comments:
Post a Comment