[QUOTE]Originally posted by joz:
[B]Oh goody quotes!
Of course if you were to actually explain what the quantum vacuum is and what quantum vacuum fluctuations are and how they can`t happen before the end of the Planck era I`d be more impressed, stunned in fact....
---Quite frankly Joz, my goal is certainly not to "stun" and/or "impress" you. I can assure you that you have not done the aforementioned to/for me.
Heres some information to help you get started:
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec17.html---I am well aware of the processes inherent in qvf testing and the conflicting theories surrounding same. I only utilized " " for ease as I, quite frankly, don't have the luxury to devote the excessive amount of time you seemingly do to this site (no offense).
Note:
"The properties of the Universe come from `nothing', where nothing is the quantum vacuum, which is a very different kind of nothing. If we examine a piece of `empty' space we see it is not truly empty, it is filled with spacetime, for example. Spacetime has curvature and structure, and obeys the laws of quantum physics. Thus, it is filled with potential particles, pairs of virtual matter and anti-matter units, and potential properties at the quantum level.
The creation of virtual pairs of particles does not violate the law of conservation of mass/energy because they only exist for times much less than the Planck time
(added by joz before you mention it this isn`t a problem as time itself only starts at the end of the Planck era). There is a temporary violation of the law of conservation of mass/energy, but this violation occurs within the timescale of the uncertainty principle and, thus, has no impact on macroscopic laws.
The quantum vacuum is the ground state of energy for the Universe, the lowest possible level. Attempts to perceive the vacuum directly only lead to a confrontation with a void, a background that appears to be empty. But, in fact, the quantum vacuum is the source of all potentiality. For example, quantum entities have both wave and particle characteristics. It is the quantum vacuum that such characteristics emerge from, particles `stand-out' from the vacuum, waves `undulate' on the underlying vacuum, and leave their signature on objects in the real Universe.
In this sense, the Universe is not filled by the quantum vacuum, rather it is `written on' it, the substratum of all existence."
And:
"The fact that the Universe exists should not be a surprise in the context of what we know about quantum physics. The uncertainty and unpredictability of the quantum world is manifested in the fact that whatever can happen, does happen (this is often called the principle of totalitarianism, that if a quantum mechanical process is not strictly forbidden, then it must occur).
For example, radioactive decay occurs when two protons and two neutrons (an alpha particle) leap out of an atomic nuclei. Since the positions of the protons and neutrons is governed by the wave function, there is a small, but finite, probability that all four will quantum tunnel outside the nucleus, and therefore escape. The probability of this happening is small, but given enough time (tens of years) it will happen.
The same principles were probably in effect at the time of the Big Bang (although we can not test this hypothesis within our current framework of physics). But as such, the fluctuations in the quantum vacuum effectively guarantee that the Universe would come into existence."
---The time separation between a quantum event and its observed result is always a relatively short one (at least for the analogies under discussion). The multi-billion-year time separation between creation of the universe and of man hardly fits the picture. "Quantum mechanics is founded on the concept that quantum events occur according to finite probabilities within finite time intervals. The larger the time interval, the greater the probability that a quantum event will occur. Outside of time, however, no quantum event is possible. Therefore, the origin of time (coincident with that of space, matter, and energy) eliminates quantum tunneling as "creator."(Hugh Ross).
The primordial vacuum is a physical state existing IN space and time. As Kanitscheider notes: "The violent microstructure of the vacuum has been used in attempts to explain the origin of the universe as a long-lived vacuum fluctuation. But some authors have connected with this legitimate speculations, far-reaching metaphysical claims, or at most they couched their mathematics in a highly misleading language, when they maintained 'creation of the universe out of nothing.' "From the philosophical point of view it is essential to note that the foregoing is far from being a spontaneous generation of everything from naught, but the origin of that embryonic bubble is really a causal process leading from a primordial substratum with a rich physical structure to a materialized substratum of the vacuum. Admittedly this process is not deterministic; it includes that weak kind of causal dependence peculiar to every quantum mechanical process."[Kanitscheider, B. 1990 "Does Physical Cosmology Transcend the Limits of Naturalistic Reasoning?" In Studies on Mario Bunge's "Treatise", ed. P. Weingartner and G.J.W. Dorn, p. 346-47. Amsterdam: Rodopi.]
So there ARE causal conditions of a quantum vacuum fluctuation though they are not fully deterministic, and we do not have "something from nothing".
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