Big Banging away Science marches on, and it takes no prisoners. The latest research, from the Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics in China, indicates that scientists now have a mathematical proof that the universe came from nothing, and by nothing they mean a “bubble in the metastable false vacuum.”
Where the metastable false vacuum is, and indeed, what it is, is not addressed in the article, but the fact that it is capable of bubbling out new universes despite the fact that it consists of nothing would make it an intriguing place to send a space mission, were it not so far away. You would have to get to the edge of our universe, which despite its start as a bubble, has grown to a pretty good size, but when you got there, you could stick a finger into the metastable false vacuum, just to see how squishy it is.
But the important point is, the whole universe came from nothing, even though it is full of lots of somethings now. That puts God out of a job. There was no need for a Hairy Thunderer to say ‘Let there be light!” to get things humming at the moment of creation. No, quantum fluctuations were sufficient to produce everything. A Supreme Being with a propensity for causing worldwide floods and giving out commandments, not to mention a distaste for consuming shellfish, was not necessary to gin up some quasars and galaxies for us to enjoy.
The theory, beloved by theologians, that God exists because there had to be a First Cause, is now a lost cause.
Not only Genesis, but other theories of the origin of the universe, including some that have been noted favorably here, such as the Ball Pit Theory of Existence, which holds that the entire universe is a ball pit at a hyper-dimensional fast-food restaurant, and derives its energies from gigantic children jumping into it from outside of the space-time continuum, have been discredited. Likewise, the Cow Gas Theory, which states that the universe was blown as a gaseous excretion from an otherworldly unguent, and we are all just molecules from that fart.
But bubbles are farts, or at least euphemisms for farts, so In the Beginning, even if nothing farted, there was a bubble, and who is to say it wasn’t a completely wretched one, similar to a morning burst emitted by some hungover fraternity slob after a night of tacos, tequila and Coronas? We’re all familiar with the background radio noise from the Big Bang, which has been humming through our universe like a particularly annoying case of tinnitus since its origin, but what about the background smell?
It’ll take science to discover that. After 13 billion years, we’re probably used to it.
Where the metastable false vacuum is, and indeed, what it is, is not addressed in the article, but the fact that it is capable of bubbling out new universes despite the fact that it consists of nothing would make it an intriguing place to send a space mission, were it not so far away. You would have to get to the edge of our universe, which despite its start as a bubble, has grown to a pretty good size, but when you got there, you could stick a finger into the metastable false vacuum, just to see how squishy it is.
But the important point is, the whole universe came from nothing, even though it is full of lots of somethings now. That puts God out of a job. There was no need for a Hairy Thunderer to say ‘Let there be light!” to get things humming at the moment of creation. No, quantum fluctuations were sufficient to produce everything. A Supreme Being with a propensity for causing worldwide floods and giving out commandments, not to mention a distaste for consuming shellfish, was not necessary to gin up some quasars and galaxies for us to enjoy.
The theory, beloved by theologians, that God exists because there had to be a First Cause, is now a lost cause.
Not only Genesis, but other theories of the origin of the universe, including some that have been noted favorably here, such as the Ball Pit Theory of Existence, which holds that the entire universe is a ball pit at a hyper-dimensional fast-food restaurant, and derives its energies from gigantic children jumping into it from outside of the space-time continuum, have been discredited. Likewise, the Cow Gas Theory, which states that the universe was blown as a gaseous excretion from an otherworldly unguent, and we are all just molecules from that fart.
But bubbles are farts, or at least euphemisms for farts, so In the Beginning, even if nothing farted, there was a bubble, and who is to say it wasn’t a completely wretched one, similar to a morning burst emitted by some hungover fraternity slob after a night of tacos, tequila and Coronas? We’re all familiar with the background radio noise from the Big Bang, which has been humming through our universe like a particularly annoying case of tinnitus since its origin, but what about the background smell?
It’ll take science to discover that. After 13 billion years, we’re probably used to it.
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