Hammerstein lifted it from Shakespeare:
"Nothing will come of nothing."
[Shakespeare, "King Lear," Act 1, Scene 1 (1608)]
Christopher
Jane E. Smith wrote:
>Bob,
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>Wonderful sysnopsis! Thanks for taking the time to rewrite it.
>
>Looks like they were wrong afterall:
>
> "Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could..."
>
> Rodgers and Hammerstein, 1965
> "Sound of Music"
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>Jane Smith
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>
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>At 12:13 AM 1/29/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>
>
>>Monday night's lecture was a fun one, with Dr. Alan Guth (MIT) speaking
>>on "Cosmic Inflation and the Accelerating Universe." For those of you
>>not aware of just who he is, Prof. Guth is the father of inflation
>>theory, which currently provides the best explanation for the
>>development and state of our universe. There were a number of TAC'os
>>attending the lecture, and I sat with a few of the PAS folk, to include
>>Ken Lum, Bud Wittlin and Alan Adler. The lecture was designed for the
>>physics layperson, i.e., no math! Well, virtually none.
>>
>>To highlight the *initial* part of Monday's lecture (inflation), Prof.
>>Guth first described what lead to the development of his inflation
>>theory: Big Bang issues associated with "omega" and a "flat" universe.
>>The universe now appears to be extremely flat, meaning that the mass,
>>gravity and velocity properties of the universe are balanced between an
>>open and a closed universe. Omega describes the ratio between the
>>density of matter in the universe and the theoretical density needed to
>>make the universe perfectly flat. If omega is greater than 1, we end up
>>with a closed universe and a Big Crunch coming. If omega is less than
>>one, then we have an open universe that goes on expanding forever. In a
>>flat universe - just in case you wondered - the universe continues to
>>expand without limit, but with the rate of expansion getting closer and
>>closer to zero as time goes on. Anyway, for the universe to be as flat
>>as it currently is, Prof. Guth stated the value of omega just one-second
>>after the Big Bang would have had to be 1 ... to an accuracy of 15
>>decimal places, an extremely "finely tuned" number, as he described it.
>>Well, this is what got Prof. Guth thinking and moving ... with his
>>inflation theory eventually resolving the problem. With inflation, the
>>universe didn't need to be fine-tuned from the beginning, but would
>>instead "drive" omega toward 1 all by itself, resulting in a flat
>>universe. By the way, Prof. Guth reminded everyone that Big Bang
>>"theory" just describes the aftermath of the Big Bang, but not what the
>>Big Bang was or how it developed ... or why the universe appears to be
>>so "uniform." Inflation, however, addresses all of this.
>>
>>To start, Prof. Guth noted that Quantum theory holds that a vacuum is
>>subject to quantum uncertainties, so particles materialize into and
>>vanish out of vacuums ... albeit very quickly. At extremely high energy
>>levels, theories predict that a form of matter can be created that is
>>gravitationally repulsive rather than attractive. This matter, which
>>would have erupted from the primordial vacuum, is called a false vacuum.
>>When an incredibly small "patch" of this matter formed, no larger than a
>>billionth of the size of a proton, the false vacuum's unimaginably
>>strong repulsive gravitational field would have expanded explosively.
>>The expansion would be exponential, with the region's diameter doubling
>>every 10^-37 seconds. After a hundred of these doublings - Prof. Guth
>>said there might have even been more - the "billionth-of-a-proton" sized
>>region would have grown to the size of a marble. For comparison
>>purposes, this increase is equivalent to a pea growing to the size of
>>the Milky Way ... in a tiny fraction of a second! As the region
>>expanded, its density also remained constant, no "thinning out" at all,
>>so the total amount of mass in the region increased by an unbelievable
>>amount. Although the increase in mass seems like a violation of energy
>>conservation, a "loophole" - the energy of a gravity field itself is
>>negative, which cancels the positive energy of the matter - keeps the
>>total energy constant. The expansion of the region also seems to
>>violate "Einstein's cosmic speed limit," but Prof. Guth noted that even
>>though the region grew at faster-than-light speed, "no particle within
>>the region would ever win a race with a beam of light." Inflation ends
>>because the false vacuum is fundamentally unstable, and decays like
>>radioactive material - in exponential fashion - characterized by a
>>half-life. The material decays into ordinary gravitational-attractive
>>material, where the particles scatter off each other, quickly reaching
>>thermal equilibrium, which creates that "primordial soup" we all
>>associated with the Big Bang.
>>
>>So it looks like the universe was created by a random quantum
>>fluctuation out of nothing. The item I found most interesting was the
>>notion that if you add up all the matter (positive) and gravity
>>(negative) in the universe, they appear to precisely balance one another
>>... or cancel each other out, as it were. As Prof. Guth described it,
>>matter plus gravity equals zero. So the universe can be created from
>>nothing ... because the universe *IS* nothing!
>>
>>Okay, so for those of you who were there, e.g., David Kingsley, Jeff
>>Crilly and James Turley - or those of you already in the know, e.g.,
>>Leonard, Da Weasel and ZZ - did I get this stuff from Prof. Guth
>>correct? <grin> If not, speak up!
>>
>>Obviously there was a lot more to all this - the second half of the
>>lecture went into acceleration, which fits in perfectly with inflation -
>>but at least this gives you the flavor of it all. Prof. Guth was also
>>very approachable, and after the lecture I asked him a couple of
>>questions about the polarization of the cosmic microwave background,
>>which he answered and expanded upon. Stanford's own Andrei Linde, an
>>incredible cosmologist in his own right, finally came over to rescue
>>Prof. Guth from people like me. <grin> Linde pointed out that both he
>>and Prof. Guth theorized that the decay of the false vacuum did not
>>happen all at once either. They both believe that while some regions
>>decay into universes, other regions keep expanding and creating other
>>universes. And if that weren't enough, they also believe that
>>"residual" false vacuum from the creation of all these universes creates
>>still more of 'em. As noted by Linde - and I was writing this down as
>>fast as I could, so I hope I have it right - he described this as "the
>>eternally existing self-reproducing inflationary universe." Pretty
>>cool, huh!
>>
>>Anyway, a great time had by all.
>>
>>(If you missed the lecture, and still want to see it, have James Turley
>>construct a Gott Time Machine for you ... uh, one that won't collapse on
>>itself. <grin>)
>>
>>...Bob...
>>Bob Czerwinski
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