Where did the matter and energy come from?

No, definitely not! Which is why we need this thread Back soon...

First off, I will not be addressing how things *are*. When I say what is true and what is not, that is in the context of the particular model/theory that I am discussing at that time. The default model is the "Standard Model" of Lambda-CDM - big bang FLRW comsology with cosmological constant and dominant cold dark matter. In this context, there is no "before" and no "outside". But both of these concepts can take on meaniing in extended models that incorporate string theory and other possible quantum gravity corrections.

Let's get it right from the start: matter is not energy; matter is not made of energy; matter is not frozen energy.Our current understanding sees that existence is made up of fields. Each field fills space-time, and they overlap each other perfectly. At each point in space-time, there is a value (set of numbers) associated with each field. A fundemental particle is an excitation in its underlying field, and there are as many fields as there are types of particle: photon, gluon, electron, quark, and even graviton. The graviton field is what gives us the concept of distance and space-time geometry. Think about this for a minute - it is the field that defines the distances we measure between objects - whether from your nose to your right big toe, or from your nose to the quasar 3C273!These fields are believed to be different facets of one master unified field, and we see this in Supergravity, string theory, and related extended models.Matter fields are those with spin-1/2, and matter particles (fermions: electron, quark, etc) are excitations of these fields. The spin-1/2 means that these partciles obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle and this gives rise to the first level of "solidity" - we see this in the atom, where virtually empty space is given structure by the electron shells surrounding the nucleus.Force or *Gauge* fields are those with integer spin, and gauge particles (bosons: photons, gluons, gravitons) are the excitations of the these fields. They obey Bose-Einstein statistics, and can overlap freely - great for lasers but crap for building things!Combining the two particle types (matter and gauge) gives us the next (and familiar) level of solidity - photons interacting with electrons give rise to the electromagnetic interactions that create the solidity of everyday experience. The reason your hands don't pass through each other when you clap is not because they are "solid" - your hands are essentially empty space - but because of electromagnetic interactions.Our current theories of fundemental physics (General Relativity, Electroweak, Qunatum Chromodynamics) explain how these fields interact and relate to each other, and build up to give us the existence we know.Notice anything curiously absent in our above description of everything?Energy - what about energy? - energy is merely an accounting system, reflecting conservation of excitations between the fields. Energy is simply quantification of the field excitations - given a particular configuration of excitations at time T1, this limits those configurations at time T2. Does this concept sound like the sort of thing that stuff is made of??? NO!!!Existence is made of the fields - or better, existence IS the fields - is the one master unified field.Any clearer? What do you mean, "no!"???? Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Bingo ABE: but with the caveat I have appended further down...Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Yep, sounds like you have it now.

Just want to drag you away from this sense of energy being 'stuff' - it's not. The energy is a coarse measure of the excitations. Otherwise we are back into wondering where this "energy" came from. The focus is the fields.

No - I think you need to read through my posts again, but with the following in mind: each field fills the entirety of space-time - from the beginning of time to its end (if such boundaries exist.) There is only one electron field, and every electron in existence is just a little bump, excitation, or wavelet in that field. Similarly for the photon field, and all of the others. Expansion is a much higher level concept than the fields themselves. Don't forget that distance itself is just a case of the values of the grvaiton field, and so expansion is simply the values in the graviton field increasing as time increases. Although the values in the graviton field will affect the dynamics in the other fields, it would be a mistake to think of the fields as "expanding" - expansion is something we perceive with our coarse high-level emergent persepctive.

Yes, absolutely. There is the SU(3) field of QCD(strong) which gives rise to the gluons, and the associated matter fields of the quarks. And the electroweak fields giving rise to the W^+/-, Z⁰, and photon fields (following electroweak symmetry breaking)

There is no dimension for them to layer "through" - they overlap perfectly - but we often picture them as layers, and use the analogy.

The values are not stored - they are. That is no more (and no less!) perplexing than the idea of geometry just being there, or "stuff" as most think of reality. Most fundemental concepts are reduced to just a set of numbers with no requirement whatsoever for some kind of "physical" substrate on which these numbers are "stored" or associated.But this is (sort of) another topic and not really relevant (just yet)

What observations are we failing to explain? Must there? Again, you are using the word matter far too loosely for this conversation. What do you mean by "matter"? What I am describing does not only apply to decoherence - I am not using environment in that strict context. There is very little that is murky in either EPR and delayed choice. What results can I obtain from polarized sunglasses that are not explained by photon quantum numbers? Yep, that's sort of what we do in science. But I am certainly not pushing the strong platonic view. I am merely explaining what we use and understand in fundemental physics. The QM agonisers can worry about interpretations, and we'll just keep going, building our understanding. Again, your hang-up on the word matter... What is it about spin-1/2 that so confuses you, where-as integer spin is not an issue? Evidence?Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

There is no retro-causality nor action-at-a-distance in either of EPR and delayed choice. You are falling for the spin. Similarly with your comments about wave-partcile duality. This is basic stuff in QM, but always talked up into spooky bullshit by those who don't know better.As for the rest, it does not belong in this thread. Your problem is not a lack of definiton of matter, which is well-defined despite your protestations, but a lack of definition of consciousness, and that which creates the subjective experience of reality. While I do have my ideas, they are, like everyone else's, highly subjective and fanciful to some degree. And not for this thread...

Think of it in the loose sense of - a circumference has a length, but lengths don't have circumferences It's a hierarchy of measurements. Too busy right now but I'll explain all this is my forthcoming summary.

Ok, this is long overdue. We started this thread with some specifics about matter and fields, but there's stil confusion with the terms matter, force, energy and mass.Matter: forget colloquial use - matter refers to fermions or spin 1/2 particles. These obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle (PEP), which restricts their number but allows them to build up into structure, such as nuclei and entire atoms. But tangible "stuff" is not just matter - it requires:Force: bosons or integer spin particles, which are free from the Exclusion Principle, meaning they can build up and re-inforce each other such that their effects can be felt at large scale levels - magnetism, gravity, lasers.The interactions between fermions and bosons (matter and force) give rise to the familiar solidity we experience every day. But that solidity is almost entirely empty space, and lots of particle interactions. Think of that when you next clap your hands.Energy: the fields that give rise to the boson and fermion particles can only interact consistently - in very simplified language, if the total amount of excitation across all fields at time T1 is E, then it must be E at T2, even if those excitations are now shared out differently across the fields. This is what we call conservation of energy. To be clear, there is no such "stuff" as energy, it is merely an accounting or quantifer of excitation of the fields.Mass: gravitons interact between all types of particles, including other gravitons. This means that gravity is generated by ALL field excitations. The measure of ALL field excitations in a volume is what we would call the energy in that volume, and the measure of gravitational attraction to the field excitations in that volume is what we call mass. So mass is simply another way of talking about the total energy in a volume, but used in the context of gravitational attraction.I'll add some practical examples later...

Ok, let's put our terminology to some use:Start with some stuff, say a piece of wood. Remember, I am discussing the terminology of particle physics, not chemistry, biology, nor economics. We wouldn't usually use these terms about something as large as a piece of wood - but hopefully it will clear up the confusion.Is it matter? Well, there's certainly a large number of fermions in it (electrons and quarks), so it contains matter, but those fermions are interacting with a practically inifnite number of force bosons (photons and gluons), so it is a mixture of matter and force.Is it energy? No, energy isn't a thing. The energy of the wood would be a measure of just how much particle excitation (matter and force) makes up the wood.Is it mass? No, mass isn't a thing. The mass of the wood is the measure of the gravitational attraction of the wood. And because gravity attracts to all field excitations, it is equivalent to the energy of the wood. If you could accurately measure the gravitational attraction of the wood, you would have a measure of the energy of the wood. If you heat up the wood, its energy and hence its mass will increase.Can we turn the wood into pure energy? No, energy is not a thing. We can swap one type of field excitation for another, i.e. change one type of particle into another, but whatever we do, we'll just have a bunch of field excitations with the same energy (and thus mass) as before.What if we hit the wood with an equivalent piece of wood made from anti-matter? Well, many of the fermions will annihilate with their anti-matter equivalents, turning into bosons. So they'll be a big explosion as all the bosons fly away. But we're still just swapping one type of field excitation for another.And moving away from the wood...Can we turn matter into energy? No. Energy is not a thing. We can turn matter particles into other matter particles. We can turn matter particles into force particles (bosons), such as in matter/anti-matter annihilation.Can we turn mass into energy? No. They are essentially the same thing. Mass is a measure of how much energy there is in a volume of space. So talking of turning one into the other is meaningless.Can we turn energy into matter. No. Energy is not thing. We can turn photons (which are sometimes incorrectly thought of as "pure" energy) into matter particles, and we can even combine particles, such that a photon of energy E vanishes as it combines with an electron, and that electron now has an increase of E in its own energy.What does it mean in a nuclear explosion, when we say that a small amount of the original mass has been turned into energy?Let's say the bomb has a mass of M. This mass is measure of the total energy of the bomb - the sum of all the field excitations that make up the bomb. This energy is mainly in the force bosons that bind the whole stuff of the bomb together - the bonds holding the atoms together, the bonds holding the nuclei together, the bonds holding the quarks together into the nucleons. A tiny amount of the energy is in the matter particles (the electrons and quarks.)In the nuclear explosion, many of the force bosons holding the nuclei together are converted into free bosons that fly out of the bomb. Also some matter particles may be ejected as the nuclei destabilise. If you add up the mass (or energy) of all of the remains including the bosons and fermions that have radiated away in the explosion, you will find that the total Mass has actually... wait for it... has what?Answers on my desk by Monday.Bonus mark if you can compare and contrast this with a chemical explosion.