Why, sometimes, I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
– Lewis Carroll
With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
– Matthew, 19:26
Nothing can be created out of nothing.
– Lucretius
Just before finishing writing this book, we came across the latest contribution to cosmology of the big bang, which appeared in The New Scientist on the 25th of February 1995. In an article by Robert Matthews entitled Nothing like a Vacuum, we read the following: “It is all around you, yet you cannot feel it. It is the source of everything, yet is nothing.”
What is this amazing thing? A vacuum. What is a vacuum? The Latin word vacuus, from which it comes, means quite simply empty. The dictionary defines it as “space empty, or devoid of all matter or content; any space unoccupied or unfilled; a void, blank.” This was the case up till now. But not any longer. The humble vacuum, in Mr. Matthews’ words, has become “one of the hottest topics in contemporary physics.”
It is proving to be a wonderland of magical effects: force fields that emerge from nowhere, particles popping in and out of existence and energetic jitterings with no apparent power source.
Thanks to Heisenberg and Einstein (poor Einstein!), we have the “astonishing realisation that all around us ‘virtual’ subatomic particles are perpetually popping up out of nothing, and then disappearing again within about 10-23 seconds. ‘Empty space’ is thus not really empty at all, but a seething sea of activity that pervades the entire Universe.” This is true and false. It is true that the whole universe is pervaded by matter and energy, and that “empty space” is not really empty, but full of particles, radiation and force-fields. It is true that particles are constantly changing, and that some have a life so fleeting that they are called “virtual” particles. There is absolutely nothing “astonishing” about these ideas, which were known decades ago. But it is entirely untrue that they pop “out of nothing”. We have already dealt with this misconception above, and it is not necessary to repeat what was said.
Like an old record with a repeating groove, those who wish to introduce idealism into physics constantly harp on the idea that you can get something from nothing. This idea contradicts all the known laws of physics, including quantum physics. Yet we find here the incredible notion that energy can be obtained literally from nothing! This is like the attempts to discover perpetual motion, which were rightly ridiculed in the past.
Modern physics begins with the rejection of the old idea of the ether, an invisible universal medium, through which light waves were thought to travel. Einstein’s theory of special relativity proved that light could travel through a vacuum, and did not require any special medium. Incredibly, after citing Einstein as an authority (as obligatory nowadays as crossing yourself before leaving church, and about as meaningful) Mr. Matthews proceeds to smuggle the ether back into physics:
This does not mean that a universal fluid cannot exist, but it does mean that such a fluid must conform to the dictates of special relativity. The vacuum is not forced to be mere quantum fluctuations around an average state of true nothingness. It can be a permanent, non-zero source of energy in the Universe.
Now what precisely is one supposed to make of this? So far we have been told about “astonishing” new developments in physics, “wonderlands” of particles and have been assured that vacuums possess enough energy to solve all our needs. But the actual information provided by the article does not seem to say anything new. It is very long on assertions, but very short on facts. Perhaps it was the author’s intention to make up for this by obscurity of expression. What is meant by a “ permanent non-zero source of energy” is anyone’s guess. And what is an “ average state of true nothingness”? If what is meant is a true vacuum, then it would have been preferable to use two clear words instead of four unclear ones. This kind of deliberate obscurity is generally used to cover up muddled thinking, especially in this area. Why not speak plainly? Unless, of course, what is involved is a “true nothingness” – of content.
The whole thrust of the article is to show that a vacuum derives unlimited quantities of energy from nowhere. The only “proof” for this is a couple of references to the special and general theories of relativity, which are regularly used as a peg upon which to hang any arbitrary hypothesis.
Special relativity demands that the vacuum’s properties must appear the same for all observers, whatever their speed. For this to be true it turns out that the pressure of the vacuum ‘sea’ must exactly cancel out its energy density. It is a condition that sounds harmless enough, but it has some astounding consequences. It means, for example, that a given region of vacuum energy retains the same energy density, no matter how much the region expands. This is odd, to say the least. Compare it with the behaviour of an ordinary gas, whose energy density decreases as its volume increases. It is as if the vacuum can draw on a constant reservoir of energy.
In the first place, we note that what was only a hypothetical “universal fluid” a couple of sentences ago has now become transformed into an actual vacuum “sea”, though where all the “water” came from, nobody is quite sure. This is odd to say the least. But leave it there. Let us, like the author, assume what was to be proved, and accept the existence of this vast ocean of nothingness. It turns out that this “nothing” is now not only something, but a very substantial “something”. As if by magic, it is filled with energy from a “constant reservoir”. This is the cosmological equivalent of the cornucopia, the “horn of plenty” of Greek and Irish mythology, a mysterious drinking horn or cauldron that, however much one drank from it, was never empty. This was a gift from the gods. Now Mr. Matthews wishes to present us with something that makes this look like child’s play.
If energy enters a vacuum, it must come from somewhere outside the vacuum. This is plain enough, since a vacuum cannot exist in isolation from matter and energy. The idea of empty space without matter is as nonsensical as the idea of matter without space. There is no such thing as a perfect vacuum on earth. The nearest thing to a perfect vacuum is space. But in point of fact, space is not empty, either. Decades ago, Hannes Alfvén pointed out that space was alive with networks of electrical currents and magnetic fields filled with plasma filaments. This is not the results of speculation or appeals to relativity theory, but is borne out by observation, including those of the Voyager and Pioneer spacecrafts that detected these currents and filaments around Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.
So there is, indeed, plenty of energy in space. But not the kind of energy Mr. Matthews is talking about. Not a bit of it. Having established his “vacuum sea” he means to get his energy directly from the vacuum. No matter required! This is much better than the conjurer who pulls a rabbit out of a hat. After all, we all know the rabbit actually comes from somewhere. This energy comes from nowhere at all. It comes from a vacuum, by courtesy of the general theory of relativity: “One of the key features of Einstein’s general relativity theory is that mass is not the only source of gravitation. In particular, pressure, both positive and negative can also give rise to gravitational effects.”
By this point, the reader is thoroughly mystified. Now, however, all becomes clear (almost). “This feature of the vacuum,” we are now told, “lies at the heart of perhaps the most important new concept in cosmology of the past decade: cosmic inflation. Developed principally by Alan Guth at MIT and Andrei Linde, now at Stanford, the idea of cosmic inflation arises from the assumption that the very early Universe was packed with unstable vacuum energy whose ‘antigravitational’ effect expanded the Universe by a factor of perhaps 1050 in just 10-32 seconds. The vacuum energy died away, leaving random fluctuations whose energy turned into heat. Because energy and matter are interchangeable, the result was the matter creation we now call the big bang.”
So that’s it! The whole arbitrary construction is meant to back up the inflationary theory of the big bang. As always, they move the goalposts continually, in order to prop up their hypothesis at all costs. It is like the supporters of the old Aristotle-Ptolemaic theory of the crystal spheres, which they continually revised, making it ever more complicated, in order to fit the facts. As we have seen, the theory has been having a bad time lately, what with the missing “cold dark matter” and the unholy mess about the Hubble constant. Badly in need of a little support, its supporters have obviously looked round for some explanation to one of the central problems of the theory – where did all the energy come from to cause the inflationary big bang. “The biggest free lunch of all time,” Alan Guth called it. Now they want to pass the bill to somebody, or something, and come up with – a vacuum. We doubt whether this particular bill will ever be paid. And, in the real world, people who don’t pay their bills are usually unceremoniously shown the door, even if they offer to produce the general theory of relativity in lieu of cash.
“From nothing, through nothing, to nothing,” said Hegel. That is a fitting epitaph for the theory of inflation. There is actually only one way of getting something from nothing – by an act of Creation. And that is only possible through the intervention of a Creator. Try as they will, the supporters of the big bang will find that their footsteps will always lead them in this direction. Some will go quite happily, others protesting that they are not religious “in the conventional sense”. But the movement back to mysticism is the inevitable consequence of this modern creation myth. Fortunately, an increasing number of people are becoming dissatisfied with this state of affairs. Sooner or later, a breakthrough will occur at the level of observation that will enable a new theory to emerge, allowing the big bang to be laid decently to rest. The sooner the better.