NOTHING!

I have not read Lawrence Krauss’ book A Universe From Nothing , but I have seen several videos in which he speaks about it and explains the idea. I think virtually all lay readers will not like the notion, nor understand it, and even many fellow professional scientists shake their heads about it. In my opinion, most of this confusion is because Lawrence did not lay out that the “nothing” he means is not truly Nothing at all.

I find it useful to separate Nothing from nothing. We know that Nothing never existed at all because if it did then it still would, and therefore the existence of Something would be utterly impossible. Since Something exists, obviously Nothing never did. But Nothing is not the nothing Lawrence means. Nothing would be absolute..it would contain, not only no matter or energy, but also no quantum fluctuations, no virtual particles popping into and out of existence, no potential of any sort whatever, no time, no boundaries or limitations of any sort.

In the following two hour debate, we see how other scientists, including Neil deGrasse Tyson, have a lot of trouble with Lawrence insisting that “nothing” nonetheless contains potentials, laws of nature, etc.

TRB