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Lawrence Krauss, Arizona State University physicist, published a new book with title “A Universe From Nothing.” Although I haven’t yet read this particular book of his, but I watched a lecture of his through a YouTube video with the same title as his book, and I have to say it was rather fascinating; at times I could only understand half of the things he had said. Anyhow, if you don’t mind few headache moments, you can watch Lawrence Krauss’s “A Universe From Nothing” lecture right after the break.
The title “A Universe From Nothing” which has been named for both of his book and his lecture which made readily available through a YouTube video in itself is quite mind boggling and fascinating. Nonetheless, what I refer to is of philosophy and not of exact science which requires experimentation. On the other hand, I think what Lawrence Krauss had inferred to why a universe from nothing might actually happen is probably backed by certain scientific formulas, experiments and proofs. Regardless, I still have to wonder is it really that how our universe was formed? That’s, from nothing that is really something!
Philosophically speaking (i.e., without any real experimentation and mathematical proof), if nothing is actually something, then we still have to wrestle with the idea that there might be a nothing that is actually nothing, and this actual nothing might have been existed before everything. Another way to phrase this is to ask it in a question. What is actually nothing? So, in a sense it’s rather implausible to see a universe could be formed from actual nothing. As how Lawrence Krauss lectured which you could watch in the YouTube video above, his nothing is something (i.e., matters) as it has a mysterious mass or energy or however he had explained, therefore it was possible for him to see a universe of ours in a current state. Without this picture, even if the calculation of the eventual sum of all matters that made known to humankind (i.e., protons, neutrons, etc…) – in total could not have come up with the scale of the universe in which we have witnessed (e.g., measured, weighed, computed) today. So, his answer was what we thought of nothing is really something after all.
Still, the question which has always lingered in the back of my mind is the kind of nothing which Lawrence Krauss had spoken of might have been created by something in the first place. In a way, it’s rather implausible if such a scenario is to be probed, not because it might not be possible to do an experiment to probe for such a scenario, although it’s probably impossible to do so with exactness, but it’s also about the philosophical aspect where we have to wonder perhaps the actual nothing might exist. If the actual nothing isn’t existed in nature ever, it would be an infinite scenario where the nothing we’ve now knew as something, if we’ve believed Lawrence Krauss’s explanation, might always have been created by something, and there was and has been such an infinite pattern of nature. In the end, it’s only a curiosity of mine, because I might not know what on earth I’m taking about — philosophical or not.
Related articles
- Where Did The Universe Come From; Lawrence Krauss Will Tell You (iantimberlake.wordpress.com)
- Something from nothing? A conversation with Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins – ASU Origins Project – RDFRS (richarddawkins.net)
- Krauss finds something in nothing – Lawrence Krauss – asu news (richarddawkins.net)
- Review: A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss (doubtingeric.blogspot.com)
- Lawrence Krauss Writes ‘A Universe From Nothing’ (huffingtonpost.com)
- Afterword from Lawrence Krauss’ New Book – A Universe From Nothing – Richard Dawkins – RDFRS (richarddawkins.net)
- From Nothing to God? (theseventhapologist.wordpress.com)
- Lawrence Krauss On ‘A Universe From Nothing’ (npr.org)
- Everything and Nothing – An Interview with Lawrence Krauss – Sam Harris – The Sam Harris Blog (richarddawkins.net)
- Nothing is something (openparachute.wordpress.com)
- A Universe From Nothing – Review – Samantha Nelson – A.V. Club (richarddawkins.net)
- Richard Dawkins’s Afterword in Lawrence Krauss’s A Universe From Nothing (3quarksdaily.com)
- A Q&A with Physicist and Author Lawrence Krauss (blogs.smithsonianmag.com)
