@@garymartin9777 I see what you did there but I deny everything. Everything. Wasn't even there at the time. Or anytime. Ask anyone. Anytime. I was volunteering in a Kleper colony outside Kleptown not too far from Klep Horn. We'd listen to Klep Kleppard and cure Kleprosy. My buddy was from Ireland - an obvious kleprechaun. Ask him he probably did it.
Love your community-oriented vids. Fermilab being on the cutting edge of research of the ghostly neutrinos makes your discoveries really exciting to hear about. Getting the facts of your research first-hand really helps in getting an evolving impression of what goes on in the part of what is but we cannot interact with or sense. Thanks for making these. Without more than due expectations, I can't wait for the next chapter.
But what I admire most about him is his humility and his acceptance of doubt. He presents things not as facts that we have to accept, but he guides us through observations and explanations and then presents the ideo of leptogenesis. Real SCIENCE at work! :)
@Alset Alokin On what basis do you make these claims? Are you a physicist with a dissenting opinion on the topic, or just claiming no one can understand it when you can't?
@Alset Alokin That's hilarious because you haven't linked any videos in this thread. I'm simply asking how you've come to the conclusion that this video is uninformed, since it's coming from Fermilab, not some crackpot theorist. No organization is impervious to criticism, but all criticism needs to be backed with evidence. Where's yours? The other thing is: How can you claim other viewers couldn't understand a single thing? I understood most of the video. You'd have to be pretty arrogant to claim to be able to read others' minds.
@Alset Alokin I appreciate the videos you've shared. I watched them all. Some may call those ideas crackpot, but I think to excommunicate ideas is an unscientific attitude. At first look, I see the problems you've raised as worth addressing, not just dismissing. Pending further research, I'm willing to entertain the ideas you've presented. You must understand, though, that the theories on both sides are subject to criticism (I have some objections to the videos, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion; and you have objections which I have been willing to hear), so you must be willing to disagree with others with a more cool head (more on that later in this comment) and accept conclusions wherever they land, even if they conflict with these theories which you are so eager to share with me. (The same principle applies to me and any other proponent of any other theories, of course.) I think you also need to be careful with how you address others to avoid a similar dogmatic and unscientific appearance. You came off as very presumptuous ("you don't understand a thing he said and neither does he") and aggressive (picking such a fight out of nowhere as though the person should have known about your relatively obscure ideas). You also used the word "crackpot" in a directly dismissive way which I didn't, causing you to also seem unscientifically dogmatic. We all understand the ideas which we are holding - Fermilab among many others, the standard model; and you and well-spoken dissenters, the electric universe - so it doesn't make sense to claim to reach into another person's mind and decree that they don't understand what they're saying just because you disagree with it. Also, we understand each other's theories - I have long understood standard model concepts and you earnestly defend the electric universe model, but I also understand what you've presented and I don't assume you can't understand the standard model, even though you disagree with it.
I know I'm not the intended viewer for these videos being a swede not even living in the US, but I am non the less greatly thankful for you putting these videos up for anyone in the world to see. They are super interesting. Thank you!!
This video really blew my mind. Thank you so much to Fermilab for this kind of content and Don for being so good at explaining such complex ideas in a way that can be understood by everyone. Really really good work here.
That steam world analogy is a fantastic one. It does help. Also, I had no idea that temperature impacts Higgs so that's a big thing I learnt today. This entire thing is really interesting.
What happens during the crossover from having no mass and moving at light speed and then having mass and not moving at light Speed? Does the quark really decelerate? Also I thought particles moving at light speed didn’t experience time. What would it be like to go from timeless to experiencing time?
Not a physicist, but here goes: Massless particles gain mass by interacting with things. Particles which would otherwise be massless gain mass by interacting with the Higgs field if they can; the Higgs field is non-zero everywhere and thus the particles which CAN interact with the Higgs field do so at all times; the higher the frequency of interaction (or, equivalently, the stronger the interaction), the higher the mass generated. Massless photons trapped in a massless reflective box give the entire ensemble mass. Massless gluons interacting within the confines of hadrons gain mass and constitute the majority of the mass of hadrons such as the proton. (Also, massless gluons are predicted to be able to interact with themselves into a confined glueball, which would be massive). Photons respond to warped spacetime and actually warp spacetime themselves; if you get enough of them in a close space so that they can warp spacetime enough to create a black hole, the photons would be trapped, and an outside observer would see that the black hole, called a kugelblitz, has a mass. So, massless particles are those which are not interacting with anything. A high-energy (and thus higher-mass) atom in an excited state can emit a photon, losing mass in the process. The photon then can travel across long distances without itself experiencing time. Then, when it interacts with another atom far away, it can be absorbed by that atom, transforming it into a high-energy (and thus higher-mass) atom. From the point of view of the photon, which is traveling at the speed of light, the journey takes no time at all, and the distance traveled is zero. So, the photon allows the two atoms to interact with each other, even though the photon itself experiences neither time elapsed nor distance traveled. However, if you consider the entire system of two atoms and photon, the whole system has higher mass than if there were no excited state, no photon, or no possibility of interaction. Another example are two electrons brought near each other. One way to think about it is that, the closer the two electrons are to each other, the higher frequency of exchange of massless virtual photons between the two electrons, and the higher the potential energy (and mass) of the system. You could also forget about virtual photons, and just think of it as the electromagnetic field between the electrons gaining energy, and thus mass. To go from massless to massive, massless particles must interact with something. Consider a massless photon passing through glass. During its passage, the photon will be probabilistically absorbed and re-emitted, most likely by an electron in the glass. We can't say when and where this absorption and re-emission will occur, but the odds are that it will happen at a certain frequency. (Also, the photon direction is a result of the superposition of all possible absorption/re-emission outcomes by various atoms, and as it turns out, the most likely path of the photon through the glass is the same way it came from, not scattered randomly like you might expect from classical particles). The higher the frequency of interaction between the photon and electrons, the slower the passage. With a sensitive enough scale, the glass could be seen to increase in mass (due to the temporarily excited electrons) during the period in which the photon is interacting with it. Equivalently, the superposition of all those interactions can be thought of as a massive quasiparticle which travels slower than the speed of light. You can't measure a non-interacting photon in free space, because any measurement would require an interaction of some sort, which destroys the photon. Photons, like all massless particles, only exist BETWEEN interactions. So, massless particles don't actually decelerate once they start interacting with things, but they transform into some superposition of interactions which must travel slower than light. Photons stuck in a box are all going at the speed of light, bouncing back and forth, but because they're trapped, an outside observer can say that they're effectively moving along at the same speed as the box. Wherever the photon box goes, the photons most follow, due to the interactions they have with the box's reflective walls. I hope that helps, and I apologize for the length and any inaccuracies.
@@radishpineapple74 you're awesome. Please suggest more to read/watch for more info on the actual topic of the video - why is there something rather than nothing, if you've time for it.
i've admired your presentations for many years now. imo, you are currently the most important science communicator. i don't always agree with you, but you present ideas in physics the most simply and beneficially to us less educated souls. thank you
Maybe this is part of the stuff you glossed over, but it seems that leptogenesis just pushes the question back one layer to "why would these special neutrinos prefer to be antimatter rather than matter?"
I love the clarity of Don's presentations - he can make a truly complex physical theory palatable through the clear explanation of the basics and good use of analogy. He's da man.
It sounds to me like even if leptogenesis is true, it still won't answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Leptogenesis explains the behavior of particles that already exist; but it doesn't explain why any of them exist in the first place.
Leptogenesis would explain why there is any matter (or anti-matter) at all. If initially there had been equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, which is what one would expect, then it all would have annihilated, and there would be nothing but radiation left.
@@michaelsommers2356 Radiation is something, though, isn't it? And even if the imbalance between matter and anti-matter is explained by Leptogenesis, that doesn't explain why there was ever any matter and anti-matter in the first place.
@@philochristos Yes, you are right but I think Dr. Don should have made it clear that he is not talking about the philosophical question, but the physics question that is one of the big ones we don't know about. Why is there matter instead of just 100% radiation.
Leptogenesis would explain why there is matter. The answer is: there is matter, because there was more matter and less anti-matter. If there would have been the same amount, both would have annihilated and there wouldn't be anything except energy. This video gives a speculative answer to the problem of the matter-antimatter imbalance. The question why is there is absolutely something (not just matter) instead of anything/nothing very likely requires just a very very very long waiting time and a very big spontaneous vacuum fluctuation.
Leptogenesis is a theoretical process that attempts to explain one of the most profound questions in physics: why is there more matter than antimatter in the universe, leading to the existence of the observable matter we see today? According to current theories, the universe began in a state of near-perfect symmetry between matter and antimatter. When particles and antiparticles meet, they annihilate each other, producing photons and other particles. If matter and antimatter were perfectly balanced, the universe would have annihilated itself, leaving only radiation and no matter to form stars, planets, or life. Leptogenesis suggests that an asymmetry in the number of leptons (a category of particles that includes electrons and neutrinos) over their corresponding antileptons in the early universe could have created this imbalance between matter and antimatter. The process involves the violation of certain symmetries, specifically CP violation (the combined symmetry of charge conjugation and parity), which allows for a slight excess of leptons over antileptons. Through interactions and processes that occurred in the early universe, this excess of leptons could be converted into a net excess of baryons (particles like protons and neutrons), eventually leading to the matter-dominated universe we observe today. While leptogenesis provides a plausible mechanism for explaining the matter-antimatter asymmetry, it does not directly answer why there is something instead of nothing. It is a crucial part of the puzzle that explains how we went from an initial state of balance to an observable universe full of matter. However, the question of why the universe exists at all, why there was an initial state capable of producing leptogenesis, and what caused the Big Bang itself remain open questions. These are topics that extend beyond leptogenesis into deeper philosophical and physical inquiries about the nature of existence and the fundamental principles that govern the universe.
I agree. This is a typical confusion. The narrator is con fused about the grounds for asking a scientific question. All scientific problems must be based the fact that something exists. Notice that all his speech is based things existing. The inability to distinguish between scientific and philosophical question is going to kill me.
Thank you SOO MUCH for making these fascinating videos - you and your colleagues are rock stars in my books!!! I'm making my way through the episodes chronologically. You often mention that lepton's change type but I haven't (yet) seen a video sketching out why we think this occurs and presenting evidence that experimental physicists have developed to convince themselves of the high likelihood of the phenomena. Even if you can't explain the theory ( no equations please) it would be super cool to see the evidence. For example I particularly enjoyed the plot pointing to the likelihood of only one type of Higgs Boson (spin 0). Carry on ladies and gents - you are doing important work!
Great video. The logical sequence suggested makes sense, and it's exciting to know that part of it is being tested. However, for me it simply moves the question from "why is there more matter than antimatter" to become "why are there more antileptons than leptons"?
You're exactly right. By the "nothing" in the video title, many if not most physicists aren't really referring to no-thing. A good example of this was seen in 2012 when David Albert reviewed Lawrence Krauss's book, "A Universe from Nothing" in the NYT. The fact that your comment has only 2 upvotes (3 now 🤓) is frustratingly depressing since it suggests that most physics-interested folk may be just as befuddled as the pros. There are notable exceptions of course. Sean Carroll is an example.
It does not answer the question why there is anything at all... Just potentially why we observe mainly matter and virtually no antimatter. Still, I've learned many things from this and many of your other video's, thanks.
It is not a question of 'why', rather a question of 'how'. The 'why' question in this regard is non answerable by science. The 'how' question though might be answerable.
@@causeitso In this case, the how isn't really answered either. "How" implies that there is some mechanism that explains the thing in question, and because a mechanism can never be "nothing", that mechanism also needs to be explained, and it's either turtles all the way down, or you reach a necessary or arbitrary brute fact. Either way, we epistemologically bottom out.
it's a relief to finally hear a video where Buzz words are not dropped right next to claims of it being absolutely mysterious. Rather than acknowledging that things are unknown and we're these unknowns can be expressed.
Most videos about speculative scientific hypotheses I've seen are clear about that, though you wouldn't know it from some of the comments left by the science deniers.
No, no ... not Doom .. it's Dune, like the desert planet with the nice pet worms and lots of spice (aka worm shit). Pretty sure, once Don rules over Dune, he will snort lots of the stuff and become a Mentat.
@@frankschneider6156 But how a fishisicist would fare on a desert world? I suspect it's more likely he would become a guild navigator - still in a cozy tank but able to see all the universe.
Thank you Dr. Lincoln. Your explanation (and Dr. Turner) helped me understand leptogenisis in much more detail (particulalrly the outlining 4 assumptions for the theory).
It feels amazing to progress through different physics courses and slowly gain insights into videos like these. I love this science and I hope I contribute something to it
Strictly speaking, but in practice scientists use the word theory with liberal abandon for almost any conjecture, just like everyone else... shhh don't tell anyone or they might think a scientific theory is not a "well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world".
I remember hearing that a hypothesis is simply one assertion in a theory, which is a collection of assertions, because technically, except in mathematics, facts don't exist. For example, how do I know you are a conscious person who exists? I'm surely not the only conscious human in the universe? Buildings exist, right? I can't prove these 100%, but to a value extremely close to that. 'Fact' is often used as a sort of colloquial term for a theory proven beyond reasonable doubt, for example, I have a theory that I am a human that I am 99.99999% sure of, so I consider it a fact. There is a technical possibility that I am a cat inside a simulation, but this probability is insignificant. Interesting that Doctors and experts in physics and such mention theories more often than us commonfolk likely due to the dinning-kruger effect :).
No, it's a threshhold. When the universe was really hot, they had no mass, and after it cooled to a certain point, they had mass. It's like with his steam/water analogy: once the temperature is low enough, the steam condenses into water, but it doesn't keep condensing.
@@phys0stud True, but that's a whole different state change. Maybe there *is* another state change to the universe, if it gets cold enough. But that threshold would have to be *really* cold, like micro-kelvins.
When antimatter and matter collide, they annihilate each other and produce intense gamma rays, so if some galaxies were made of antimatter and some others, matter, we would see shiny gamma ray fireworks in the region between them where they would inevitably come into contact with each other, but we don't, so we're pretty sure there are no antimatter galaxies in the observable universe. Could there be some outside the observable universe, too far for us to see? Theoretically, yes.
@@FarukAhmet To iterate on that point, aside from the fact that intergalactic medium would be a mess of gamma rays signatures due to dust collisions, galactic mergers would be hilariously cataclysmic and energetic by comparison - perhaps the greatest fireworks shows in the universe, but there's been no such source of gamma rays in the observable universe. For some reason, matter won out over antimatter.
Thanks for this comment. I had never heard of the Sphaleron process and was wondering why a process like that wouldn't also be working in reverse. "Spontaneous symmetry breaking" put it in context for me. 👍🏼
Can someone please suggest a similar analogy to "fish in steam and water" analogy ? I am doing a presentation in school on 'why matter prevailed' for a competition but don't want to keep the same analogy?
Despite enormous interest in the subject, I was a terrible failure at physics in high school, so I dropped it when I could, but the thought, that if I could understand the theory then I could still create my own universe, has lingered.
Very interesting and well explained as usual...but I don't think this really touches on the great philosophical question of why there is something instead of nothing.
True. Q: Why is there something instead of nothing? A: Well, we start off with matter and anti-matter and then want to know why the anti-matter disap..... Q: NOOOOO! Why was there matter and anti-matter? Why were there fields? Why was there ANYTHING? A: .......
@@capitalist88 I never understand this reasoning - it's pretty damn clear if there was nothing, then you can't ask the question, therefore the fact that you are asking the question is simply due to the fact that there is something.
@@Beer_Dad1975 , we _know_ there is something. The fact that it is a necessary precondition for asking the question is not an _answer_ to the question.
@@ps200306 From a scientific perspective, you are quite correct, it is not an answer to *how* there is something instead of nothing. From a philosophical perspective, it is an answer to *why* there is something instead of nothing. Think of it like this, if you bought a ticket and won a hundred million dollars in a lottery, you can ask *how* you won the lottery and calculate the statistical probabilities that might be say, one in 100,000,000 - so there is your *how*. You can, if you are a bit simple, also ask *why* you won the lottery given the odds are so small it should not have happened - but it's effectively a meaningless question, because you won already - it is already a fact - if it had not happened you would not be asking the question. Now, you can go ahead and make shit up about fate or divine intervention or magic pixies or whatever but that's just making shit up to explain something that simply is.
Actually Matthew Sharpe's answer is still better than the one in the video, because at least it addresses the core meaning of the question without just ignoring it like the video does.
I appreciate that Dr. Don is speaking in purely scientific terms here. I am, however, missing the part where the something occurs instead of nothing. I get that leptogenesis is dealing with the relationship between matter and anti-matter but I'd be grateful if someone would explain at what point, according to the leptogentic theory, something occurs where there should be nothing.
If I understood this correctly (and it is very possible that I did not) the point is that if no "imbalance" between matter and antimatter was created, the universe would not be able to exist as the matter and antimatter would just eradicate each other again. Thus, when converting antimatter to matter in the "steam world" the excess matter is what makes up our universe now and is also why we cannot find antimatter, because most if not all of it was "used up". Please correct me if I understood this incorrectly.
@@Loxorius Thanks for your response. That implies that matter/anti-matter can exist in one of two states but not simultaeously? I don't think that is what Dr. Don is suggesting though I give way to anyone with a better understanding than I do. Maybe a further analogy would be being unable to view both sides of the moon at the same time. Notwithstanding the ability to stand on the poles, when we look at the moon, we are unable to see the dark side and vice versa. I believe the sugegtsion is that while we "know" the dark side is there, we are unable to see it. However, it remains difficult for me to see how the something arises out of nothing.
Thank you Dr Lincoln. I was curious to a video you might make about neutrinos as a linked topic to behaviour of oscillations in black holes. given that neutrino shock waves are at the frontline on supernovae inverse sphere explosions, could neutrinos act as such somehow associated with quasar activity ?
It is hardly clear that any of this fascinating stuff is about ‘something from nothing’ as opposed to ‘something from something else’, the real business of physics after all.
@@knyghtryder3599 Of course nothingness cannot exist. If it could it would be something after all. But that merely definitional fact does not tell us why there should be anything at all rather than not anything at all, which is how the original question should be understood. Nothingness is the absence of anything at all, not the presence of a merely mysterious something.
@@theophilus749 Right but we have no evidence for all of reality not existing All we have evidence for is something , and for something always existing and no evidence for any possible alternative We have no evidence for creation , so this is all fallacious assumption , a straw man
@@knyghtryder3599 Things that do or have existed are possible because they do exist or have existed. But anything that is possible may or may not have existed. That's what 'possible' means. In a sense just this is the evidence: the whole passing show (whether or not it has always existed) may _not_ have existed. It's difficult to see what other kind of evidence even could coherently be asked for. There's no straw man'. I rather think that you are taking 'nothingness' to be some sort of merely empty state of affairs then, quite rightly, pointing out that we have no evidence for that. But that is a false start. To repeat: 'Nothingness = not anything', including any empty states of affairs'. The only way you could block nothingness as a possibility is to point to one thing in the world and justifiably say of it 'this exists necessarily'. But I see no evidence for any such thing.
@@theophilus749 You keep fixating on philosophical nothingness and İ am glad you agree , we don't see any evidence for it or reason to assume that nothingness ever preceded something, but why you believe we have any evidence that the universe could not exist or be any different than it is , is still a mystery, we have a universe, we have evidence for it existing, not proof but evidence, if we ever have any other evidence indicating that this universe came from another or something else or wasn't always here fine , but for some reason we treat this as a default plausible alternative with zero evidence. For example list anything that exists today that you believe could 'not have existed' and then let me know why you think that would be possible For example trees exist , but on mars we see no trees , but they still exist , even if all the trees on earth die , trees still existed , but even with no trees ever all the elements and energy that make up trees currently would always still exist and have always existed, we really see zero evidence for creation anywhere in any sense and very little true destruction , photons loose a tiny bit of energy when stretched across the entire universe but scientists are still debating if that is even true or it is just being absorbed/converted to heat , we always assume it is legit to discuss the creation of the universe or why things exist and we really don't see much of any evidence of anything being created or coming into existence in any real sense of the term, and with a universe or all known existence, we have a sample size of one and incomplete information about it.
I am actually surprised. Your videos have always been exceedingly good. However, this video shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the question "why is there something rather than nothing". The question, in philosophy, has nothing to do with matter: is energy a thing? Are fields things? Philosophically they are (they have ontology). The question of "why there is something" includes these more fundamental entities within which matter exists but is not itself dependent upon matter existing. While there is clearly a very fundamental question of "why there is mass vs no mass" that is a far different question than "why is there something as opposed to nothing". Your explanation therefore doesn't touch this deeper question.
Hypothetical situation: this mechanism pans out. It's demonstrated to everyone's satisfaction. We now have the matter universe we observe and live in as opposed to a radiation filled one from total annihilation, we have our matter. Is it not a massive, huge step twords that ultimate question? Next come up with fields and laws. An actual, real answer to what happened at the instant of the big bang is a different question.
If something is gonna give the answer to this question then it is a physics. Philosophy just rambles endlessly and makes assumptions and presuppositions. It literally makes things up without any way to verify anything.
@@sasilik Granted philosophy certainly can stretch the imagination, but everybody does philosophy, just not equally well: ideas are often tossed around without consideration to their consequences. This is the case with every discipline, even physics. Verificationism has its own problems: not all truths can be tested much less verified. I'm not convinced that physics can answer these more ultimate questions: how can you test the immaterial? Just presuming it does not exists is a bit naive if not outright irrational.
@@1stGruhn , how can you show that your idea that there is something immaterial has any merits? For that you should have a way to test immaterial. Just presuming that it exist is outright irrational. You are literally making something up without any way to test it and then say that others who do not accept that as a fact are naive and irrational. I also don't understand why there must be something immaterial when all can be equally explained with something material which we just don't know yet.
Great analogy of how both water and steam are H2O, yet so different... to explain the behavior of Higgs at high temps!! Awesome. PS: And so, i imagine one can think of mass "condensing" out of the Higgs as the temp cools. Thanks for another great video!
Love your videos, very informative! Thank you! However, this one, I watched the whole thing and at the end I’m still NOT sure how it answers the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” I guess that question can be heard on different levels. I think you are answering the question as “why did MATTER (= something) DOMINATE after the Big Bang?” But the way the Ancient Greeks posed this question, it was in the philosophical sense as “why is there ANYTHING AT ALL and not rather nothingness?” That points to the question: “what is the source and origin that made it possible for all that is to be AND to be that which it is” - i.e., the “question of being” (“τι το ον”) which Aristotle said was the defining question of Greek thought (later picked up in modern times by Heidegger). That points to inquiring into the ultimate source / origin / cause for reality (= all that is). I think the way PHYSICS tackles this question by answering in terms of MATTER misses the deeper - and confounding, mind-boggling, slippery, vaguer, elusive - question into the origins of all that is (being). That’s where we slip into the philosophical realm where answers are elusive and hard to grasp. So... maybe Physics isn’t “everything” as you say, and doesn’t / can’t answer everything - and in particular, the very question of this video? ;-)
Dear Dr. Lincoln. Thank you for an amazing lecture series. I loved your great courses series as well and you are doing a wonderful job of explaining high level physics as well as bringing it to the masses. I know it's not as popular as a tik tok video; but your efforts are greatly appreciated.
This really tripped me out. I don't think it explains why there's something rather than nothing. But it really explains the functionality of our universe well.
From the leptogenesis argument that you’re extending here, it is painfully clear that you have no clue what even thinking about Nothing entails; at least philosophically. “Why is there something, anything at all, rather than Nothing?” is an existential / phenomenological / metaphysical question that goes far beyond the existence of matter/energy, matter-antimatter annihilation, leptons, fermions, the Big Bang, the very notion of Space (Spacetime), symmetries and asymmetries, vacuum fluctuations, and all the rest of those quaint niceties that physics is concerned about.
True, but the title is just clickbait. The video never attempted to address the question in the title. It is just a theory about what gave rise to the asymmetry of matter-to-antimatter in the Universe (of course, by assuming a process which requires an anti-matter dominant asymmetry, to begin with, lol). It's difficult to tell if the theory is garbage, or if the video explanation of it is, or both.
There is a much simpler explanation: that there are antimatter galaxies in the universe, but they stopped interacting and annihilating with matter (because they were so spread out) before the CMB came into being. I have to say I'm skeptical of this model, just because it requires a lot of steps which seem unlikely.
The infertile neutrinos can only form under magnetic fields during their journey of flavor transformations. I wonder if the magnetic field can play a determinant role as to give matter particles preponderance ? Such as the assumed single magnetic poles might force the neutrinos to behave in a certain way to decay into the matter particles ?
I think searching for different particles would finally lead to one thing : All of subatomic particles are different shapes of one mysterious matter....That's really mind blowing!!
It is kind of expected actually. Physical reality is contiguous and based from one origin. And matter is of one nature in terms of its overall behavior and the set of properties in which, it can have variance.
You, Mr. Alligator, win the grand prize. All of reality is one substance and particles are simply patterns in the substance, sort of like small compressed crumples of the substance., not detached. And as the crumples gain enough mass, they burn and generate heat/light, like a sun. In a supercollider, new particles aren't being discovered. They're being created. That is, the energy of the collision is causing new patterns to form in the substance. In reality, there aren't any particles, or even waves - everything is simply a pattern of one gigantic sheet of The Thing That Is Everything.
That is how I felt, it is just dealing with the mechanics of particle/fields not why any of it exists at all. There is no answer to why the universe(s) exist, matter can neither be created or destroyed it just is, it a mystery and a religious/spiritual phenomena why there is something rather than nothing. 'The sound of one hand clapping'... Zen Koan designed to break the student's attachment to causal thought.
The options for a secular view are limited: 1 - the universe has always been here (that's dodging the issue) 2 - it created itself (ie no ingredients or laws or reason for doing so) something or someone had to have created the universe from without.
Indeed, and should you figure out how something came from nothing then you are left with the question, "Why"? Science says there can be no "Why" for the creation of the universe, but a "Why" for everything else IN the universe.
Thanks Doc ! You manage to explain complex subjects in such a manner that mare mortals as myself can somewhat understand them. My foundation is but low level college physics. Take care.
Wait why do we need the neutrinos? If the Sphaleron process can occur to all of the antimatter leptons, why it can't simply convert all of the antimatter leptons into baryons without the need for more animatter leptons from the neutrinos?
If I'm not wrong i remember that at enormous temperatures the 4 fundamental forces merge at some point. Now if at these high temperatures the Higgs field "disappears" shouldn't Gravity also just vanish? Instead of merging.
They are not _known_ to merge - they're _speculated_ to do so by TOE sympathizers Plus, the Higgs doesn't "disappear" at the electroweak unification temp - it's its 'condensate' that does; theoretically speaking, the Higgs mech is very similar to a phase transition - which is why the fundamental insight behind it, Goldstone's theorem, first appeared in the context of condensed matter...
When I saw the title I thought this was going to explain why there is anything at all --- ever -- versus just a completely empty, and perhaps infinite, void. This is really the vastly more important question. Why is there any energy to convert into matter and anti-matter at the beginning of the bang? And a huuuge amount of it. We may never know the answer to this.
Kleptogenesis explains why there is something rather than nothing in my buddys fridge.
This comment deserves more likes
Did you steal that joke?
@@garymartin9777 I see what you did there but I deny everything. Everything. Wasn't even there at the time. Or anytime. Ask anyone. Anytime. I was volunteering in a Kleper colony outside Kleptown not too far from Klep Horn. We'd listen to Klep Kleppard and cure Kleprosy. My buddy was from Ireland - an obvious kleprechaun. Ask him he probably did it.
Kudos.
Stop putting stolen food in your buddies fridge man
I'm curious as to how Fermi will deal with the sand worms and transportation of the spice once Dune is operational.
Well, of course with an equal amount of anti-sand worms. That should solve the issue.
diGritz1
Just bring in the Sardaukar and don't let Lincoln near any of the harvested spice.
Probably with vast numbers of blue eyed Fermians guarding caches of water in their sietches.
I think you mean Fremen Labs.
Gracefully of course.
The Steam World - Water World was a helpful analogy
makes we wonder if we're going a "ice world" tho
It makes my skin wrinkly...
Fuseteam the ice world is in the future
Fuseteam and past
@@ronmccord8866 lol
Love your community-oriented vids. Fermilab being on the cutting edge of research of the ghostly neutrinos makes your discoveries really exciting to hear about. Getting the facts of your research first-hand really helps in getting an evolving impression of what goes on in the part of what is but we cannot interact with or sense.
Thanks for making these. Without more than due expectations, I can't wait for the next chapter.
These videos deserve a prize. So informative! You are awesome Dr Don!!!
But what I admire most about him is his humility and his acceptance of doubt. He presents things not as facts that we have to accept, but he guides us through observations and explanations and then presents the ideo of leptogenesis. Real SCIENCE at work! :)
@Alset Alokin On what basis do you make these claims? Are you a physicist with a dissenting opinion on the topic, or just claiming no one can understand it when you can't?
@Alset Alokin That's hilarious because you haven't linked any videos in this thread.
I'm simply asking how you've come to the conclusion that this video is uninformed, since it's coming from Fermilab, not some crackpot theorist. No organization is impervious to criticism, but all criticism needs to be backed with evidence. Where's yours?
The other thing is: How can you claim other viewers couldn't understand a single thing? I understood most of the video. You'd have to be pretty arrogant to claim to be able to read others' minds.
@Alset Alokin lol, "best documentary ever?" someone's a little overconfident there...
@Alset Alokin I appreciate the videos you've shared. I watched them all. Some may call those ideas crackpot, but I think to excommunicate ideas is an unscientific attitude. At first look, I see the problems you've raised as worth addressing, not just dismissing. Pending further research, I'm willing to entertain the ideas you've presented. You must understand, though, that the theories on both sides are subject to criticism (I have some objections to the videos, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion; and you have objections which I have been willing to hear), so you must be willing to disagree with others with a more cool head (more on that later in this comment) and accept conclusions wherever they land, even if they conflict with these theories which you are so eager to share with me. (The same principle applies to me and any other proponent of any other theories, of course.)
I think you also need to be careful with how you address others to avoid a similar dogmatic and unscientific appearance. You came off as very presumptuous ("you don't understand a thing he said and neither does he") and aggressive (picking such a fight out of nowhere as though the person should have known about your relatively obscure ideas). You also used the word "crackpot" in a directly dismissive way which I didn't, causing you to also seem unscientifically dogmatic.
We all understand the ideas which we are holding - Fermilab among many others, the standard model; and you and well-spoken dissenters, the electric universe - so it doesn't make sense to claim to reach into another person's mind and decree that they don't understand what they're saying just because you disagree with it. Also, we understand each other's theories - I have long understood standard model concepts and you earnestly defend the electric universe model, but I also understand what you've presented and I don't assume you can't understand the standard model, even though you disagree with it.
"Bird's eye view"
Shows us a fish
yup, captain birdseye.
Chicken of the sea
well they are cousins if you don't mind looking far enough in their genealogy tree.
He always wanted to be a comedian. Obviously. Also, "the details don't matter." Hah!
Flying Fish, definitely
I know I'm not the intended viewer for these videos being a swede not even living in the US, but I am non the less greatly thankful for you putting these videos up for anyone in the world to see. They are super interesting. Thank you!!
Everyone who has a minimum of interest in the topic is an intended viewer.
@@pansepot1490 Sure, but it's funded by US tax dollars so it's intended viewer is of course the US general public
@@larsalfredhenrikstahlin8012 Not necessarily true. That's very insular thinking. I hope your country becomes more international in the future
This video really blew my mind. Thank you so much to Fermilab for this kind of content and Don for being so good at explaining such complex ideas in a way that can be understood by everyone. Really really good work here.
"Good things come to those who wait."
Unless you die while waiting for the answer.
"That's research!"
glimmer of sunshine for sure
halogenic
There are no answers in science, just more questions.
@@frankschneider6156 whatever you say Cardinal Bellarmine....
I am indeed a saint.
Wow: Great video; another nice, understandable explanation for business degree science junkies / "dummies". Thanks.
That steam world analogy is a fantastic one. It does help. Also, I had no idea that temperature impacts Higgs so that's a big thing I learnt today. This entire thing is really interesting.
I grew up in Aurora, IL, very happy to see you smart chaps at Fermilab still up to something !
Every since Wayne and Garth got kicked off cable access, Aurora, IL. has kinda sucked.
What happens during the crossover from having no mass and moving at light speed and then having mass and not moving at light Speed? Does the quark really decelerate? Also I thought particles moving at light speed didn’t experience time. What would it be like to go from timeless to experiencing time?
why not? they had some impulse, like photon does, that value just hadn't changed. And who cares about speed itself?
Not a physicist, but here goes:
Massless particles gain mass by interacting with things. Particles which would otherwise be massless gain mass by interacting with the Higgs field if they can; the Higgs field is non-zero everywhere and thus the particles which CAN interact with the Higgs field do so at all times; the higher the frequency of interaction (or, equivalently, the stronger the interaction), the higher the mass generated. Massless photons trapped in a massless reflective box give the entire ensemble mass. Massless gluons interacting within the confines of hadrons gain mass and constitute the majority of the mass of hadrons such as the proton. (Also, massless gluons are predicted to be able to interact with themselves into a confined glueball, which would be massive). Photons respond to warped spacetime and actually warp spacetime themselves; if you get enough of them in a close space so that they can warp spacetime enough to create a black hole, the photons would be trapped, and an outside observer would see that the black hole, called a kugelblitz, has a mass.
So, massless particles are those which are not interacting with anything. A high-energy (and thus higher-mass) atom in an excited state can emit a photon, losing mass in the process. The photon then can travel across long distances without itself experiencing time. Then, when it interacts with another atom far away, it can be absorbed by that atom, transforming it into a high-energy (and thus higher-mass) atom. From the point of view of the photon, which is traveling at the speed of light, the journey takes no time at all, and the distance traveled is zero. So, the photon allows the two atoms to interact with each other, even though the photon itself experiences neither time elapsed nor distance traveled. However, if you consider the entire system of two atoms and photon, the whole system has higher mass than if there were no excited state, no photon, or no possibility of interaction.
Another example are two electrons brought near each other. One way to think about it is that, the closer the two electrons are to each other, the higher frequency of exchange of massless virtual photons between the two electrons, and the higher the potential energy (and mass) of the system. You could also forget about virtual photons, and just think of it as the electromagnetic field between the electrons gaining energy, and thus mass.
To go from massless to massive, massless particles must interact with something. Consider a massless photon passing through glass. During its passage, the photon will be probabilistically absorbed and re-emitted, most likely by an electron in the glass. We can't say when and where this absorption and re-emission will occur, but the odds are that it will happen at a certain frequency. (Also, the photon direction is a result of the superposition of all possible absorption/re-emission outcomes by various atoms, and as it turns out, the most likely path of the photon through the glass is the same way it came from, not scattered randomly like you might expect from classical particles). The higher the frequency of interaction between the photon and electrons, the slower the passage. With a sensitive enough scale, the glass could be seen to increase in mass (due to the temporarily excited electrons) during the period in which the photon is interacting with it. Equivalently, the superposition of all those interactions can be thought of as a massive quasiparticle which travels slower than the speed of light.
You can't measure a non-interacting photon in free space, because any measurement would require an interaction of some sort, which destroys the photon. Photons, like all massless particles, only exist BETWEEN interactions. So, massless particles don't actually decelerate once they start interacting with things, but they transform into some superposition of interactions which must travel slower than light. Photons stuck in a box are all going at the speed of light, bouncing back and forth, but because they're trapped, an outside observer can say that they're effectively moving along at the same speed as the box. Wherever the photon box goes, the photons most follow, due to the interactions they have with the box's reflective walls.
I hope that helps, and I apologize for the length and any inaccuracies.
@@radishpineapple74 you're awesome. Please suggest more to read/watch for more info on the actual topic of the video - why is there something rather than nothing, if you've time for it.
A collision would do it.
@@radishpineapple74 very good explanation.
i've admired your presentations for many years now. imo, you are currently the most important science communicator. i don't always agree with you, but you present ideas in physics the most simply and beneficially to us less educated souls. thank you
Maybe this is part of the stuff you glossed over, but it seems that leptogenesis just pushes the question back one layer to "why would these special neutrinos prefer to be antimatter rather than matter?"
They were teenage neutrinos
@@Priapos93 That's Teenage Mutant Ninja Neutrinos
Thank you for taking the time to try explaining all this to people like me who are interested but never properly studied the subject.
The whole time he was describing the theory, I could only think about the classic "Then a miracle occurs" cartoon. 🤭
Always great when even complex physics can be made at least partially understandable. All the more when it's as cutting edge as this. Great job.
Dune: deep underground neutrino experiment. Right. Good one guys 🤣
?
D-eep
U-nderground
N-eutrino
E-xpiriment
I think the joke is that they are up to something nefarious
I give Dr. Don credit for standing up and delivering this sermon with a straight face.
A big fan of you Dr. Lincoln
I love the clarity of Don's presentations - he can make a truly complex physical theory palatable through the clear explanation of the basics and good use of analogy. He's da man.
It sounds to me like even if leptogenesis is true, it still won't answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Leptogenesis explains the behavior of particles that already exist; but it doesn't explain why any of them exist in the first place.
Leptogenesis would explain why there is any matter (or anti-matter) at all. If initially there had been equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, which is what one would expect, then it all would have annihilated, and there would be nothing but radiation left.
@@michaelsommers2356 Radiation is something, though, isn't it? And even if the imbalance between matter and anti-matter is explained by Leptogenesis, that doesn't explain why there was ever any matter and anti-matter in the first place.
@@philochristos Yes, you are right but I think Dr. Don should have made it clear that he is not talking about the philosophical question, but the physics question that is one of the big ones we don't know about. Why is there matter instead of just 100% radiation.
Leptogenesis would explain why there is matter. The answer is: there is matter, because there was more matter and less anti-matter. If there would have been the same amount, both would have annihilated and there wouldn't be anything except energy. This video gives a speculative answer to the problem of the matter-antimatter imbalance.
The question why is there is absolutely something (not just matter) instead of anything/nothing very likely requires just a very very very long waiting time and a very big spontaneous vacuum fluctuation.
@@larsalfredhenrikstahlin8012 That makes sense.
Leptogenesis is a theoretical process that attempts to explain one of the most profound questions in physics: why is there more matter than antimatter in the universe, leading to the existence of the observable matter we see today? According to current theories, the universe began in a state of near-perfect symmetry between matter and antimatter. When particles and antiparticles meet, they annihilate each other, producing photons and other particles. If matter and antimatter were perfectly balanced, the universe would have annihilated itself, leaving only radiation and no matter to form stars, planets, or life.
Leptogenesis suggests that an asymmetry in the number of leptons (a category of particles that includes electrons and neutrinos) over their corresponding antileptons in the early universe could have created this imbalance between matter and antimatter. The process involves the violation of certain symmetries, specifically CP violation (the combined symmetry of charge conjugation and parity), which allows for a slight excess of leptons over antileptons. Through interactions and processes that occurred in the early universe, this excess of leptons could be converted into a net excess of baryons (particles like protons and neutrons), eventually leading to the matter-dominated universe we observe today.
While leptogenesis provides a plausible mechanism for explaining the matter-antimatter asymmetry, it does not directly answer why there is something instead of nothing. It is a crucial part of the puzzle that explains how we went from an initial state of balance to an observable universe full of matter. However, the question of why the universe exists at all, why there was an initial state capable of producing leptogenesis, and what caused the Big Bang itself remain open questions. These are topics that extend beyond leptogenesis into deeper philosophical and physical inquiries about the nature of existence and the fundamental principles that govern the universe.
The title of this should actually be "Can leptogenesis explain why there is a preponderance of matter versus antimatter?"
Their title isn't the best but it's not wrong, since preponderance of one type of matter is the reason why there is something instead of nothing
I agree. This is a typical confusion. The narrator is con fused about the grounds for asking a scientific question. All scientific problems must be based
the fact that something exists. Notice that all his speech is based things existing. The inability to distinguish between scientific and philosophical question
is going to kill me.
@@karlwarda7628 YOu mean, versus the preponderance of the other type of matter? The other type that is a THING? That is SOME thing?
r/iamverysmart
This is the best fermilab intro. It just suits the epicness of Dr Don. Oh and physics.
I need to look at this again. I just woke up from my beauty sleep. This was a bit too harsh for my brain right now.
If you just woke up from your beauty sleep, why you still ugly?
Lol JK bro 🍻
Also watching right after my nap...
Thank you SOO MUCH for making these fascinating videos - you and your colleagues are rock stars in my books!!! I'm making my way through the episodes chronologically. You often mention that lepton's change type but I haven't (yet) seen a video sketching out why we think this occurs and presenting evidence that experimental physicists have developed to convince themselves of the high likelihood of the phenomena. Even if you can't explain the theory ( no equations please) it would be super cool to see the evidence. For example I particularly enjoyed the plot pointing to the likelihood of only one type of Higgs Boson (spin 0).
Carry on ladies and gents - you are doing important work!
Great video. The logical sequence suggested makes sense, and it's exciting to know that part of it is being tested. However, for me it simply moves the question from "why is there more matter than antimatter" to become "why are there more antileptons than leptons"?
You're exactly right. By the "nothing" in the video title, many if not most physicists aren't really referring to no-thing. A good example of this was seen in 2012 when David Albert reviewed Lawrence Krauss's book, "A Universe from Nothing" in the NYT. The fact that your comment has only 2 upvotes (3 now 🤓) is frustratingly depressing since it suggests that most physics-interested folk may be just as befuddled as the pros. There are notable exceptions of course. Sean Carroll is an example.
The physicist fish looks somewhere between constantly astounded and high af. Love it
Hah, a "fishisicist"!
Fishicist
Do fishisicists study nuclear fishon?
Fishion Mailed
Someone give this man a cookie
Thanks again Dr. Lincoln for sharing a little of what you're thinkin'. This is cool cutting-edge stuff.
Brilliantly explained. Utterly fascinating. Thank you.
Mindblowling and mind bending. Excellent teacher and worth watching a few times to let it permeate. Way to go Fermilab!
It does not answer the question why there is anything at all...
Just potentially why we observe mainly matter and virtually no antimatter.
Still, I've learned many things from this and many of your other video's, thanks.
It is not a question of 'why', rather a question of 'how'. The 'why' question in this regard is non answerable by science. The 'how' question though might be answerable.
@@causeitso In this case, the how isn't really answered either. "How" implies that there is some mechanism that explains the thing in question, and because a mechanism can never be "nothing", that mechanism also needs to be explained, and it's either turtles all the way down, or you reach a necessary or arbitrary brute fact. Either way, we epistemologically bottom out.
Seriously you are the best instructor at Fermilab.
Ahh, finally found Schrödinger's cat and its alive, just sometimes not a cat.
You cracked the code, my friend.
Thank you! This explanation is both great and humbling. I would really appreciate hearing more about the details please!
it's a relief to finally hear a video where Buzz words are not dropped right next to claims of it being absolutely mysterious. Rather than acknowledging that things are unknown and we're these unknowns can be expressed.
Most videos about speculative scientific hypotheses I've seen are clear about that, though you wouldn't know it from some of the comments left by the science deniers.
"We call it Dune..."
I misheard it as Doom the first time.
Same, I thought "oh dear, that sounds a tad ominous"
No, no ... not Doom .. it's Dune, like the desert planet with the nice pet worms and lots of spice (aka worm shit). Pretty sure, once Don rules over Dune, he will snort lots of the stuff and become a Mentat.
My god
@@frankschneider6156 But how a fishisicist would fare on a desert world? I suspect it's more likely he would become a guild navigator - still in a cozy tank but able to see all the universe.
It's a real challenge to explain these advanced subjects to dummies like me. And, you do a pretty good job of it.
I love Fermilab... but I find the Chiral Discrimination displayed in hunting only RIGHT-HANDED neutrinos to be despicable and unnerving. ｡^‿^｡
This is because all neutrinos detected until now are Left-handed (and antineutrinos all Right-handed).
Holy cow I I love this TH-cam channel! Yet another mind-blowing video.
Let me sum up what you said. "Uhh, I dunno."
Yup 😥🤕
In fairness, nobody knows but it’s good to speculate (well I like to speculate anyway)
Thank you Dr. Lincoln. Your explanation (and Dr. Turner) helped me understand leptogenisis in much more detail (particulalrly the outlining 4 assumptions for the theory).
Please make a video on evanescent waves and quantum tunneling .
Evanescent waves wake me up inside
Flying Skyward, 😂
Watch PBS space times video on quantum tunneling
That's precisely how they are making DUNE...using evanescent waves and quantum tunneling. No ditch diggers need apply.
It feels amazing to progress through different physics courses and slowly gain insights into videos like these. I love this science and I hope I contribute something to it
And how exactly would temperature influence the Higgs field ?
_theoretical_ physicist, departed from 'laws' a long time ago. honestly after relativity anything goes..
Infinities matter.
and Anti.
I'm your fan, Doc, keep it going!
If you emphasize "may" be the answer wouldn't that be a hypothesis, not a theory?
Correct, "theory" refers to the maths that quantifies the hypothesis.
Curt TDH yes
Strictly speaking, but in practice scientists use the word theory with liberal abandon for almost any conjecture, just like everyone else... shhh don't tell anyone or they might think a scientific theory is not a "well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world".
I remember hearing that a hypothesis is simply one assertion in a theory, which is a collection of assertions, because technically, except in mathematics, facts don't exist. For example, how do I know you are a conscious person who exists? I'm surely not the only conscious human in the universe? Buildings exist, right? I can't prove these 100%, but to a value extremely close to that.
'Fact' is often used as a sort of colloquial term for a theory proven beyond reasonable doubt, for example, I have a theory that I am a human that I am 99.99999% sure of, so I consider it a fact. There is a technical possibility that I am a cat inside a simulation, but this probability is insignificant.
Interesting that Doctors and experts in physics and such mention theories more often than us commonfolk likely due to the dinning-kruger effect :).
WindnWater no
Love this channel!! Dr. Don does a great job!
*I understand this, completely*
The chalk board is a recipe for s'mores.
General Lee N Knass /knot retired/
Some Moreuon neutrinos.
love the work u guys do at fermilab
If temperature changes when the universe expands and it also changes the mass.
Is the mass of fundamental particles increasing?
No, it's a threshhold. When the universe was really hot, they had no mass, and after it cooled to a certain point, they had mass. It's like with his steam/water analogy: once the temperature is low enough, the steam condenses into water, but it doesn't keep condensing.
jursamaj no but eventually it freezes.
@@phys0stud True, but that's a whole different state change. Maybe there *is* another state change to the universe, if it gets cold enough. But that threshold would have to be *really* cold, like micro-kelvins.
yes and no. Mass as m=E/c^2 hasn't changed, but inertial mass turned from zero to the same value as first one.
9:37 Why in this reaction the electric charge is not conserved?
yeah good question
ok figured it out i think... The numbers shown are not electric charge, they are the lepton number (-1) and the baryon number (+1)
God bless you thank you so much I don't know how to thank your efforts love from Iraq 🇮🇶🇮🇶🇮🇶
Great topic! Can’t wait to find out
As always like first then see the video I never regret it
One of my favorite chanells for all time : )
* channels
* of
* time.
How do we know that there actually is more matter than antimatter?
How do we know that some neighbor galaxy is not completly from antimatter?
When antimatter and matter collide, they annihilate each other and produce intense gamma rays, so if some galaxies were made of antimatter and some others, matter, we would see shiny gamma ray fireworks in the region between them where they would inevitably come into contact with each other, but we don't, so we're pretty sure there are no antimatter galaxies in the observable universe. Could there be some outside the observable universe, too far for us to see? Theoretically, yes.
@@FarukAhmet To iterate on that point, aside from the fact that intergalactic medium would be a mess of gamma rays signatures due to dust collisions, galactic mergers would be hilariously cataclysmic and energetic by comparison - perhaps the greatest fireworks shows in the universe, but there's been no such source of gamma rays in the observable universe. For some reason, matter won out over antimatter.
Awesome! Thanks for greatly simplifying the ideas of Sphaleron and Higgs spontaneous symmetry breaking, and making them interesting as always!
Thanks for this comment. I had never heard of the Sphaleron process and was wondering why a process like that wouldn't also be working in reverse. "Spontaneous symmetry breaking" put it in context for me. 👍🏼
This is so exciting!
Can someone please suggest a similar analogy to "fish in steam and water" analogy ? I am doing a presentation in school on 'why matter prevailed' for a competition but don't want to keep the same analogy?
Liquid and fluent anything (or solid and liquid). It doesn't have to contain a fish to show that the properties are diffirent.
😳 Surely leptogenesis is a hypothesis, and not yet an explanatory theory . . . ?
😸 Kudos all round for the appearance of the cats 🐈!
Despite enormous interest in the subject, I was a terrible failure at physics in high school, so I dropped it when I could, but the thought, that if I could understand the theory then I could still create my own universe, has lingered.
Very interesting and well explained as usual...but I don't think this really touches on the great philosophical question of why there is something instead of nothing.
True.
Q: Why is there something instead of nothing?
A: Well, we start off with matter and anti-matter and then want to know why the anti-matter disap.....
Q: NOOOOO! Why was there matter and anti-matter? Why were there fields? Why was there ANYTHING?
A: .......
@@capitalist88 I never understand this reasoning - it's pretty damn clear if there was nothing, then you can't ask the question, therefore the fact that you are asking the question is simply due to the fact that there is something.
@@Beer_Dad1975 , we _know_ there is something. The fact that it is a necessary precondition for asking the question is not an _answer_ to the question.
@@ps200306 From a scientific perspective, you are quite correct, it is not an answer to *how* there is something instead of nothing. From a philosophical perspective, it is an answer to *why* there is something instead of nothing. Think of it like this, if you bought a ticket and won a hundred million dollars in a lottery, you can ask *how* you won the lottery and calculate the statistical probabilities that might be say, one in 100,000,000 - so there is your *how*. You can, if you are a bit simple, also ask *why* you won the lottery given the odds are so small it should not have happened - but it's effectively a meaningless question, because you won already - it is already a fact - if it had not happened you would not be asking the question. Now, you can go ahead and make shit up about fate or divine intervention or magic pixies or whatever but that's just making shit up to explain something that simply is.
Actually Matthew Sharpe's answer is still better than the one in the video, because at least it addresses the core meaning of the question without just ignoring it like the video does.
I appreciate that Dr. Don is speaking in purely scientific terms here. I am, however, missing the part where the something occurs instead of nothing. I get that leptogenesis is dealing with the relationship between matter and anti-matter but I'd be grateful if someone would explain at what point, according to the leptogentic theory, something occurs where there should be nothing.
If I understood this correctly (and it is very possible that I did not) the point is that if no "imbalance" between matter and antimatter was created, the universe would not be able to exist as the matter and antimatter would just eradicate each other again. Thus, when converting antimatter to matter in the "steam world" the excess matter is what makes up our universe now and is also why we cannot find antimatter, because most if not all of it was "used up".
Please correct me if I understood this incorrectly.
@@Loxorius Thanks for your response. That implies that matter/anti-matter can exist in one of two states but not simultaeously? I don't think that is what Dr. Don is suggesting though I give way to anyone with a better understanding than I do. Maybe a further analogy would be being unable to view both sides of the moon at the same time. Notwithstanding the ability to stand on the poles, when we look at the moon, we are unable to see the dark side and vice versa. I believe the sugegtsion is that while we "know" the dark side is there, we are unable to see it. However, it remains difficult for me to see how the something arises out of nothing.
Loved the fish!!!!
Hey Dr. Don you have nice T's every episode. Where can we purchase those?
Thank you Dr Lincoln. I was curious to a video you might make about neutrinos as a linked topic to behaviour of oscillations in black holes. given that neutrino shock waves are at the frontline on supernovae inverse sphere explosions, could neutrinos act as such somehow associated with quasar activity ?
How can we observe differences in neutrino and antineutrino oscillation and prove that neutrino is its own antiparticle at the same time?!!!!
Hands up if you realised your not that clever... :)
The opposite of dunning kruger effect. Very healthy to feel that way and not the other way around. :)
@@analogueavenue lol, you're right, well done you :)
Smart people know they are stupid but stupid people think they are smart. So hands up for the smart people that realise they are "not that clever".
You'll never convince me that leptogenesis isn't how leprachauns create gold.
It is hardly clear that any of this fascinating stuff is about ‘something from nothing’ as opposed to ‘something from something else’, the real business of physics after all.
Humanity is still waiting for a scrap of proof that nothingness could exist before even considering it as an alternative to the known universe
@@knyghtryder3599 Of course nothingness cannot exist. If it could it would be something after all. But that merely definitional fact does not tell us why there should be anything at all rather than not anything at all, which is how the original question should be understood. Nothingness is the absence of anything at all, not the presence of a merely mysterious something.
@@theophilus749 Right but we have no evidence for all of reality not existing
All we have evidence for is something , and for something always existing and no evidence for any possible alternative
We have no evidence for creation , so this is all fallacious assumption , a straw man
@@knyghtryder3599
Things that do or have existed are possible because they do exist or have existed. But anything that is possible may or may not have existed. That's what 'possible' means. In a sense just this is the evidence: the whole passing show (whether or not it has always existed) may _not_ have existed. It's difficult to see what other kind of evidence even could coherently be asked for. There's no straw man'.
I rather think that you are taking 'nothingness' to be some sort of merely empty state of affairs then, quite rightly, pointing out that we have no evidence for that. But that is a false start. To repeat: 'Nothingness = not anything', including any empty states of affairs'.
The only way you could block nothingness as a possibility is to point to one thing in the world and justifiably say of it 'this exists necessarily'. But I see no evidence for any such thing.
@@theophilus749 You keep fixating on philosophical nothingness and İ am glad you agree , we don't see any evidence for it or reason to assume that nothingness ever preceded something, but why you believe we have any evidence that the universe could not exist or be any different than it is , is still a mystery, we have a universe, we have evidence for it existing, not proof but evidence, if we ever have any other evidence indicating that this universe came from another or something else or wasn't always here fine , but for some reason we treat this as a default plausible alternative with zero evidence.
For example list anything that exists today that you believe could 'not have existed' and then let me know why you think that would be possible
For example trees exist , but on mars we see no trees , but they still exist , even if all the trees on earth die , trees still existed , but even with no trees ever all the elements and energy that make up trees currently would always still exist and have always existed, we really see zero evidence for creation anywhere in any sense and very little true destruction , photons loose a tiny bit of energy when stretched across the entire universe but scientists are still debating if that is even true or it is just being absorbed/converted to heat , we always assume it is legit to discuss the creation of the universe or why things exist and we really don't see much of any evidence of anything being created or coming into existence in any real sense of the term, and with a universe or all known existence, we have a sample size of one and incomplete information about it.
Dr Lincon, when are we gonna have the next revolution in physics? it has been 100 years since the last one..
I am actually surprised. Your videos have always been exceedingly good. However, this video shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the question "why is there something rather than nothing". The question, in philosophy, has nothing to do with matter: is energy a thing? Are fields things? Philosophically they are (they have ontology). The question of "why there is something" includes these more fundamental entities within which matter exists but is not itself dependent upon matter existing.
While there is clearly a very fundamental question of "why there is mass vs no mass" that is a far different question than "why is there something as opposed to nothing". Your explanation therefore doesn't touch this deeper question.
Hypothetical situation: this mechanism pans out. It's demonstrated to everyone's satisfaction. We now have the matter universe we observe and live in as opposed to a radiation filled one from total annihilation, we have our matter.
Is it not a massive, huge step twords that ultimate question? Next come up with fields and laws. An actual, real answer to what happened at the instant of the big bang is a different question.
If nothing existed , we wouldn't worry why .
If something is gonna give the answer to this question then it is a physics. Philosophy just rambles endlessly and makes assumptions and presuppositions. It literally makes things up without any way to verify anything.
@@sasilik Granted philosophy certainly can stretch the imagination, but everybody does philosophy, just not equally well: ideas are often tossed around without consideration to their consequences. This is the case with every discipline, even physics.
Verificationism has its own problems: not all truths can be tested much less verified. I'm not convinced that physics can answer these more ultimate questions: how can you test the immaterial? Just presuming it does not exists is a bit naive if not outright irrational.
@@1stGruhn , how can you show that your idea that there is something immaterial has any merits? For that you should have a way to test immaterial. Just presuming that it exist is outright irrational. You are literally making something up without any way to test it and then say that others who do not accept that as a fact are naive and irrational. I also don't understand why there must be something immaterial when all can be equally explained with something material which we just don't know yet.
Great analogy of how both water and steam are H2O, yet so different... to explain the behavior of Higgs at high temps!! Awesome. PS: And so, i imagine one can think of mass "condensing" out of the Higgs as the temp cools. Thanks for another great video!
More like the Higgs field condenses out. Or the temperature decreases enough to allow it to come into being and be recognised or to function.
Love your videos, very informative! Thank you! However, this one, I watched the whole thing and at the end I’m still NOT sure how it answers the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” I guess that question can be heard on different levels. I think you are answering the question as “why did MATTER (= something) DOMINATE after the Big Bang?” But the way the Ancient Greeks posed this question, it was in the philosophical sense as “why is there ANYTHING AT ALL and not rather nothingness?” That points to the question: “what is the source and origin that made it possible for all that is to be AND to be that which it is” - i.e., the “question of being” (“τι το ον”) which Aristotle said was the defining question of Greek thought (later picked up in modern times by Heidegger). That points to inquiring into the ultimate source / origin / cause for reality (= all that is). I think the way PHYSICS tackles this question by answering in terms of MATTER misses the deeper - and confounding, mind-boggling, slippery, vaguer, elusive - question into the origins of all that is (being). That’s where we slip into the philosophical realm where answers are elusive and hard to grasp. So... maybe Physics isn’t “everything” as you say, and doesn’t / can’t answer everything - and in particular, the very question of this video? ;-)
Dear Dr. Lincoln. Thank you for an amazing lecture series. I loved your great courses series as well and you are doing a wonderful job of explaining high level physics as well as bringing it to the masses. I know it's not as popular as a tik tok video; but your efforts are greatly appreciated.
You are cool
This really tripped me out. I don't think it explains why there's something rather than nothing. But it really explains the functionality of our universe well.
From the leptogenesis argument that you’re extending here, it is painfully clear that you have no clue what even thinking about Nothing entails; at least philosophically. “Why is there something, anything at all, rather than Nothing?” is an existential / phenomenological / metaphysical question that goes far beyond the existence of matter/energy, matter-antimatter annihilation, leptons, fermions, the Big Bang, the very notion of Space (Spacetime), symmetries and asymmetries, vacuum fluctuations, and all the rest of those quaint niceties that physics is concerned about.
True, but the title is just clickbait. The video never attempted to address the question in the title. It is just a theory about what gave rise to the asymmetry of matter-to-antimatter in the Universe (of course, by assuming a process which requires an anti-matter dominant asymmetry, to begin with, lol).
It's difficult to tell if the theory is garbage, or if the video explanation of it is, or both.
Great explanations! I am so glad the internet gods got me to your channel.
leptogenesis has nothing to do with 'why there is something rather than nothing'. You haven't understood that question's full potential.
I live near Lead, about 15-20 minutes away. I always read about SURF in the newspapers around here.
Cool story Bro' tell it again ! (more like I have to watch this at least 5 times lol).
There is a much simpler explanation: that there are antimatter galaxies in the universe, but they stopped interacting and annihilating with matter (because they were so spread out) before the CMB came into being.
I have to say I'm skeptical of this model, just because it requires a lot of steps which seem unlikely.
So if this theory is true, neutrinos and antineutrinos behave differently, and they are also one and the same. Hmm.
"mutrinos" ??
Will I have a question
according to this hypothesis, where did matter leptons came from?
"we don't have to look inside the box to see what going on"
What's in the f-- box?!
What's in the box?
SE7EN
The infertile neutrinos can only form under magnetic fields during their journey of flavor transformations.
I wonder if the magnetic field can play a determinant role as to give matter particles preponderance ?
Such as the assumed single magnetic poles might force the neutrinos to behave in a certain way to decay into the matter particles ?
Interesting video, but clickbait title that doesn't even come close to answering the question.
I think searching for different particles would finally lead to one thing : All of subatomic particles are different shapes of one mysterious matter....That's really mind blowing!!
It is kind of expected actually. Physical reality is contiguous and based from one origin. And matter is of one nature in terms of its overall behavior and the set of properties in which, it can have variance.
You, Mr. Alligator, win the grand prize. All of reality is one substance and particles are simply patterns in the substance, sort of like small compressed crumples of the substance., not detached. And as the crumples gain enough mass, they burn and generate heat/light, like a sun. In a supercollider, new particles aren't being discovered. They're being created. That is, the energy of the collision is causing new patterns to form in the substance. In reality, there aren't any particles, or even waves - everything is simply a pattern of one gigantic sheet of The Thing That Is Everything.
I was born in 2005 a century after Einstein's miracle year
NAMAN GOYAL same
great accomplishment mate
NAMAN GOYAL And you are watching these videos!? Way to go, youngster!
@@john-or9cf no I had been seeing these videos from 2 years
NAMAN GOYAL I usually watch pbs space time but dr Lincoln’s calming voice and simple analogies for explaining physics make in enjoyable
This isn't about "something rather than nothing", it's about why there's a predominance of matter over anti-matter.
That is how I felt, it is just dealing with the mechanics of particle/fields not why any of it exists at all. There is no answer to why the universe(s) exist, matter can neither be created or destroyed it just is, it a mystery and a religious/spiritual phenomena why there is something rather than nothing. 'The sound of one hand clapping'... Zen Koan designed to break the student's attachment to causal thought.
The options for a secular view are limited:
1 - the universe has always been here (that's dodging the issue)
2 - it created itself (ie no ingredients or laws or reason for doing so)
something or someone had to have created the universe from without.
Indeed, and should you figure out how something came from nothing then you are left with the question, "Why"?
Science says there can be no "Why" for the creation of the universe, but a "Why" for everything else IN the universe.
Thanks Doc ! You manage to explain complex subjects in such a manner that mare mortals as myself can somewhat understand them. My foundation is but low level college physics. Take care.
Wait why do we need the neutrinos? If the Sphaleron process can occur to all of the antimatter leptons, why it can't simply convert all of the antimatter leptons into baryons without the need for more animatter leptons from the neutrinos?
Great video, well spoken, good info, thanks.
If I'm not wrong i remember that at enormous temperatures the 4 fundamental forces merge at some point. Now if at these high temperatures the Higgs field "disappears" shouldn't Gravity also just vanish? Instead of merging.
Nope.
They are not _known_ to merge - they're _speculated_ to do so by TOE sympathizers
Plus, the Higgs doesn't "disappear" at the electroweak unification temp - it's its 'condensate' that does; theoretically speaking, the Higgs mech is very similar to a phase transition - which is why the fundamental insight behind it, Goldstone's theorem, first appeared in the context of condensed matter...
When I saw the title I thought this was going to explain why there is anything at all --- ever -- versus just a completely empty, and perhaps infinite, void. This is really the vastly more important question. Why is there any energy to convert into matter and anti-matter at the beginning of the bang? And a huuuge amount of it. We may never know the answer to this.