Absolutely spot on observation of this lecture. It s an excellant lecture, bu, in d eyes of humanity, an it's efforts 2 explain everything, we r still infants in trying 2 understand everything. Maybe it's just a fact tha we l never b able to. And, this s whr we yearn for something higher. And this, s d beginning of our true journey. And being shaped by our destinies 2 something greater. And this, wud b d essence, of an ultimate goal, for Humanity, trying 2 find its Way, in d fog of reality, an maybe discovering, along d Way, tha Faith Hope an Charity an Forgiveness, an Love, r d currency, of the Gods. An this only becomes meaningful, when it has bn, discovered, for Oneself ❤
Atkins' book Physical Chemistry is the best science book I've ever encountered, a masterpiece of clear writing. If you think this talk is somehow dated and out-of-touch, you are wrong: Atkins knows modern physics at a high level and, like Feynman, he comes off as naive at first, only later do you realize that you've been served some deep concept usually reserved for those with advanced mathematical training. Check out Feynman's QED for a great example of this.
Though he is correct in his statement that absolutely nothing is without spacetime, he fails to truly create absolutely nothing when he imposes uniformity and isotopy. Imposing this means there has to be something, a coordinate system of some sort, with which to impose this on. Absolutely nothing can't be more or less dense, but it also can not be uniform. The concept is meaningless without space to measure it relative to. The amount of something contained in some space. But without anything in it, and without space to measure it in we would have 0/0. Imposing any physical property inherently means we have something present that is capable of having this physical property applied to it. Beyond that, if time does not exist beforehand, there would be an asymmetry in time at the creation of time. So energy would not be conserved at the beginning of time.
Mark Morris I think you are referring to 0/0 potentially having a limit that we can use to define it. However the concept of a limit is used to deal with a discontinuous point in a function. The function will approach a value at a discontinuous point from one side, and if the other side approaches the same value we can define the value of that point to be the limit. This however is not a discontinuity in a function. There simply is no space or time. At least in his own description. The concept of uniformity requires there to be space. So it loses its meaning without space. Now as to using the concept of limits to deal with the first instance of time, I suppose it is a possible approach. It gets confusing to think about. It isn't that time is zero beforehand. That would just set the starting point to measure time from. It's that it doesn't exist. I am genuinely unsure how you would deal with that mathematically so I don't really have anything to add to that.
Ok, some thoughts. In the beginning, his theory was looking like bad metaphysics - like the old rationalist ones, with axioms and entities that came out of nowhere. Then he set course to justify his inicial postulates on the basis of firmly grounded physics, and that was when it became a bit interesting. I thought that perhaps he would present good arguments to condensate and aggregate physical theories into concepts, which would be interesting in a metaphysical speculative sense. But no solid reason was presented, just brief comments and analogies. It would only be relevant to make this conceptualization if he could logically or argumentatively prove that this three concepts are the fundamental "logical atoms" or imperatives of all fundamental physical reality. That is no easy task, and he failed, or he omitted all the revolutionary evidence of the talk. Then he used this unjustified concepts to take relational and causal jumps with no justification. In the end it was impossible to understand if he could see the line between fundamental aspects of reality and theoretical concepts. This is not philosophy. Contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of physics are very serious fields that have lots of interesting and important things to say. This is just opinion.
Right. For example, basic question: how do you define the energy when you start from nothing? However, I think his reflections around what is established in physics and what this can tell us about the world (like questioning the Feynman interpretation of light trajectory as the integral of all possible paths) can be interesting. However, I am not sure that the first question to solve is the transition from nothing to something, because, first, it's an unsolvable question, and second, perhaps something has always existed. I have the feeling that the interesting question is to know if the laws of the universe (so, let's say, the universe itself, as we cannot separate one from the other) could have been different (and in which ways?), or if they had to be what they are. For this, some-probably mathematically based, if we go with Platon-model involving fundamental concepts (including, why not, modelisation of indolence, anarchy or ignorance) needs to be found. There is already an example of such a trial by great mathematician Alain Connes, explaining that the emergence of time could reside into non-commutative geometry!
"I thought that perhaps he would present good arguments to condensate and aggregate physical theories into concepts, which would be interesting in a metaphysical speculative sense. But no solid reason was presented, just brief comments and analogies." I was going to make my comment pretty much as what you have said, I'm glad I read yours first. This was a PERHAPS brave, but ineffective, attempt at explaining these areas; he almost said nothing new. Even his three concepts were badly explained. He may be over-learned, or just too pompous a lecturer, as some academics tend to be. But for getting a good idea about the conditions of things in these area, there is no better lecture than the recent one by Sean Caroll, a physicist with equally or better learning but much better presentation. I think it is called "The Big Picture" it will leave you owed, but not speechless, like this guy's lecture, and not boring either.
Nothing exists without something. Something has to be there to govern the state of nothing; otherwise, nothing will almost be anything that we can't imagine. Imagination is actually information. Information is something. We cannot describe nothing without using information. We are now dealing with the new egg and chicken problem. Does nothing exist before information or does information exist first?
It is a mistake to suppose that the elementary particles and forces are constrained in their behavior by some invisible hand we call "The Laws of Nature". As though the laws of nature existed before there was any material for them to work upon. (John 1:1) This is exactly backwards from how the laws of nature were formulated by the scientific method. Laws of nature are descriptions of how nature behaves, as discovered through experience. With better and more accurate precision in observation these descriptions of nature are finely tuned to match the phenomena actually observed. The value of Pi is a description of nature more precise than the universe can actually manifest.
Laws of nature are not descriptions of how nature behaves... we don't know what nature does. What they are is instructions to ourselves to operate in a way that we can obtain an measurable outcome with an acceptable restricted uncertainty. Like "we don't know what's going on, but if you can manage to do this and this, you will observe something more or less like this other thing happening most likely most of the time".
I like the manner in which Peter Atkins explains the laws of nature. I never dare to say that the universe started from NOTHING. What I feel comfortable with, is the idea of two-phased array Radio Frequency sources, where at least two electromagnetic coherent sources intermingle to add cumulatively or destructively. In shaping radiating patterns of antennas, one can phase the Electromagnetic sources to produce nodes and antinodes where if one walks around the polar pattern one could meet locations where there are no resultant electromagnetic fields and there are locations where there is a resultant electromagnetic field. This phased action and results in two electromagnetic fields describe evolution itself be it shaping matter or the unwritten laws of nature. Laws and evolution and natural selection came about due to IGNORANCE AND CHAOS of not knowing in which direction to move and to react and all particles and energies are ignorant of the paths to be taken but they must pay the consequences of the paths they chose to take. Let us take the wavelengths of a light source wanting to travel from location A to location B where the light wavelengths emerge in all directions as they are absolutely ignorant of the law of transmission so they take all the available paths. Those wavelengths which travel in straight lines to the target they will remain in phase and would be cumulative by the time they reach the target so they remain in existence and they will be useful to be used to illuminate the target. All the other numerous wavelengths which due to their ignorance chose to take curvacious or curly paths rather than a straight line then the law included in that path would cause a phase change between the wavelength and so a destructive effect will be included in that curved path. The consequences of this ignorance of traveling in any path of their choice resulted in one natural law being better than the other as all other "curvatious" laws caused a phase change between the wavelengths and they destroyed themselves. This is the manner in which natural selection chooses the law, and how mass forms into the different plants and creatures and humans we know of. Ignorance permits entities to move in any manner they like but they all have to pay the consequences of their choice. All those choices which form a stable condition are termed as the natural laws of nature.
I like Peter Atkins, especially when he says such things as - to paraphrase - his book is one full of words. Nevertheless I think God not only can but must exist.
It's not just boring, it's muddled, circular and utterly full of irrelevance. It would take a good speaker 1 minute to explain the first 15 minutes and it wouldn't demand so much of an audience to be constantly grasping at the straws of Atkin's feeble and fanciful arguments. There's an expression in portuguese that perfectly describes this lecture: "it's full of hay" - like a scarecrow, it has the semblance of reality, but no actual substance. His constant little anecdotes, asides and commentary add absolutely nothing to his already empty postulates... and you're left hanging there waiting desperately for a hint of insight.
If nothing = absolutely empty; then absolutely empty = no energy. But how can energy (our universe) emerge from no energy? And don't tell me our universe is just a dispersion of energy and the sum of it is 0. Because that would still mean, a force must have dispersed the energy in the fist place.
@@steffen5121 I had issues with this too. The idea is that on the quantum level particles can pop up into existence as a pair of particle and anti particle. With total mass/energy equals zero. We actually observe this in reality. But the problem with that idea is that you have to presuppose then that quantum vacuum is eternal and it existed prior to the local presentation of our universe. And this is unfalsifiable as far as I know
@@tomroyca Yeah. The problem I have with that is, that it evades empric methods by definition. It's an axiom that cannot be proven or disproven, like the transcendend existence of a God.
Interesting but frustrating. Don't isotropy and uniformity require space? Doesn't rolling over require time? Is the presentation wild speculation or scientific consensus? I'm used to RI physics being the latter, if it's not, shouldn't it be flagged at the start?
Everything, all things without distinction or definition is identical to "absolutely nothing". Consider a black canvas with a single pink shape of a human without any outline. If you continue adding shapes of all conceivable objects until the entire canvas is absolutely pink then everything is there, all things in the universe are present on the canvas but without distinction or definition nothing is there. If everything was pink then it might as well be black, there would be no sight, it would be blindness or absolutely nothing.
With GR, time is more wiggly, and simultaneity isn't preserved. In QM Electrons tunnel faster than light, but that Energy seems to disappear. I agree with some elements of your main point, but I suspect your approach may need slight modifications.
Would have preferred physicist to give this talk, but I think the short answer is "we do not know". I do not think anything could emerge from nothing, there is no nothing in our space-time and I admit I am not very good at imagining "nothing" outside of our universe. My best guess (though I will happily admit that probably wrong) is that our universe is part of some higher order universe. I do not think it is something that can be proven though, given the constant speed of light and expansion speed of the universe which seems to be really big, I think we are too far from the edges to be able to see them. And if we live on multidimensional surface there are no edges to see at all. Also the space seems to have negative curvature across large scales which is rather strange and hard to imagine concept.
Option 1) something from nothing, in the beginning was nothing, then it exploded. Option 2) perpetual motion, the universe has always existed but never runs down. Option 3) intelligent design, there is an intent or purpose involved in the creation of the universe. Special note; we cannot prove at this time what the engine could possibly be that started everything in moving (prime mover). Nothing is the absence of variation at every scale.
"Nothing" exists nowhere but in the human imagination. It is a concept without a referent. It arises from the idea of the absence of specific things or classes of things from a defined space. As in: "There are no more cookies in the bag. The bag now contains nothing." From this every day casual concept, good for expressing the idea of specific sorts of absences, we get the unfortunate idea of "the absence of everything". Instead of asking, "Why is there something rather than nothing?", we should be asking why & how we mistakenly allowed such an absurd animal as a mythical existential "nothing" to capture our thinking.
So, there was a conceptual "NOTHING AT ALL", where not even information, space, time or energy had been born yet. Still, there was Indolence, Anarchy and Ignorance. Well, OK, but you gotta convince me about that. :o)
Jack Daniel If there is - and + in the 0 then the thing that made them split would be outside of the 0 so either way the idea doesn’t work. If absolutely nothing is going on why the change?
Yikes - a bit beyond me. Thanks very much for a clear and clearly explained model in any case. I wonder if a justifiable theory can be built on the hypothesis that consciousness creates the universe. From what it is aware of and what it is not. Thanks again Prof. Atkins. Will probably have to watch your presentation again - the law of my nature is that it's kind of dense. 🙂
Um, what? I watched the whole thing, but he lost me when he said "Nothing rolls over and becomes Something" WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN? nothing is invariant, empty, and isotropic, sure, why not. But "There is no energy in the universe and no angular momentum, but it looks like there is..."
The reality of nothing is the combined sum of the precognition of the awareness other than those known and everything it dose not. As soon as the chaos of darkness and emptiness realizes there is the presence of anarchy, sloth, and ignorance man is there to be it's example.
Absolutely nothing can't have a propensity because a propensity is something, not nothing. If it's nothing, absolutely nothing, then it has no properties, that could or could not be uniform. Absolutely nothing, can't be uniform because uniform something is same the same and different spots. Both spots and thing that is the same are somethings, not no things. It's not isotropic because there is nothing to measure or directions to measure it from. It can't be empty because emptiness requires a space that is not filled and that is something. If your talking about absolutely nothing then there really isn't any thing to say about it, because it isn't even an it. If it rolls over then it is something. That the universe had a beginning is an unmentioned assumption. Conservation laws are a big hint that nothing was never the case. Why is it people (e.g. Krauss and now Atkins) keep saying nothing and then start talking about something?
I learnt absolutely nothing from this talk. I would like this talk to return to the nothing from which it states everything came. If there is nothing to study and nothing to know, why is everything so bloody expensive? It should cost nothing!
I don't know how anyone else feels, but I find the cubic background extremely distracting; the colors alone contrast in an ugly way with the soft tones of the lecture theater. The sharp angularity of the cubes contrasts the soft rounded curves of the famous desk. The cubes distract me so much that they vie for attention with the lecturer, which is not a good thing. Surely a better background could be devised more in keeping with the rest of the environment which would not distract people from the lecture taking place.
Speaking as a physicist: This talk gravely misrepresents several physics ideas that are already well-understood, and reaches some ridiculous conclusions; meaningless statements like "the total angular momentum _was_ zero _before the beginning of time_". His representations of Noether's Theorem, path integrals and gauge theories are somewhat accurate, but dumbed down so far that there is nothing of value left. His speculations about the origin of the universe are overly simplistic and are neither good physics nor good philosophy.
Common sense missing - we have had not a single instance in our observation, where something came out of nothing, what to speak of makinh matter follow some vomplex Laws. An obvious logical acceptable ans is an intelligent designer or God.
Energy in our universe at cosmic scales is not conserved because of the acceleration of our universe. General relativity clearly states this, an example of energy being destroyed is the redshift of photons that travel across the universe. I suppose that this is what happens when you let a chemist give physics lectures, do us all a favor and please just stick to chemestry and leave complicated things like physics to physicists. This lecture is a complete waste of time.
Disregarding the validity or usefulness of this lecture, Isn't the redshift occurring because the universe is apparently expanding? Therefore, work being done to explain the transfer of energy.
You would have to consider all forms of energy. Expanding spacetime (dark energy) adds energy, since dark energy has constant energy density. Gravitational energy potential however becomes more negative in an expanding spacetime. Etc.
The very idea of nothing is a result of a measuring apparatus that lacks sophistication. Atkins talks of absolutely nothing - which is a conceptual error even philosophically. It is, if nothing else, a violation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle; primarily with the conjugate variables of position and momentum - but even with those of energy and time, as more involved eigen vectors. This assumption of ours begins simply because we have chemical machines as eyes - and thus, there are limits to what they can perceive. It is because of this reality that when we remove a can of soda, for example, from the table, we describe the space that it used to inhabit as "empty" now. Of course it is not empty, since there are oxygen and nitrogen atoms (mostly) that rush in to inhabit the extremely evanescent vacuum that the removal of the can induced. Even in a vacuum, we know from elementary particle physics that virtual particles are flashing in and out of "existence" courtesy of an energy credit provided by the principle that carries Heisenberg's namesake. The Big Bang is simply an inevitable, statistical fluctuation that underwent an inflationary epoch (Guth of MIT), much like its classical analog in the three-body problem. In the land before time, so to speak, such things have "all the time" in the world to eventually manifest themselves - remember, in the land of time that we inhabit, which Einstein revealed as ancillary to the presence of mass and energy - extremely unlikely events "take time to happen." When time is not a factor because gravity has yet to secede from Grand Unification, then it "doesn't matter" how unlikely something will happen is - it WILL happen. Even a principle as hallowed as the conservation of energy is not actually preserved over time scales very, very small in the elementary particle realm...in fact, this reality is inscribed into the very essence of quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics, where we use the Feynman Calculus to discern which statistically significant events contribute the most to the calculation of, say, the probability that an anti-proton collides with a proton to produce the energies observed at those velocities. At 15:50 or so, Atkins is wrong - insofar as I can discern. He states that the universe emerged from the uniformity of nothing - but that isn't true. It emerged as a result of an especially large surge of energy associated with interminable quantum vacuum fluctuations. The very ideas of both uniformity and nothingness are errors in reasoning derived from an unsophisticated measuring apparatus - our human eyes. we describe a table, for example, as "smooth"; even though on the submicroscopic level, it looks like the many jagged peaks of the Himalayas, and on the subatomic level, it can be almost indistinguishable from the air that occupies the volume above it! Of course, Atkins might have stated the bit about uniformity as an expedient - which is what I suspect. As such, he's not really wrong, right? He then would've had to explain to the audience some of the more esoteric realities of the quantum vacuum, Heisenberg's Principle, etc. I don't know - perhaps I'm being charitable. The talk got really good around gauge theories though - it's a perspective with which I am intimately familiar, but Atkins fleshed it out well for the given time slot. Further on, Atkins states that the gas law emerges when you don't know what individual molecules are doing; I suppose one could put it that way - but it obscures more than it illuminates. Much more accurately (arguably), the gas law applies when the particles are weakly-interacting. You can actually use it to describe ANY system in which a multitude of particles are weakly interacting over time scales long. The emergent equation is the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution function - and it can describe everything from why the sun shines, to why it rains, or to one of my favorite lectures to the interested - why your cup of coffee MUST cool down. If the particles are strongly interacting (such that, for example, they chemically react) then the gas law fails. So, in a sense, I would argue that you DO know what the individual particles are doing - the same thing that ALL particles are doing when they are not interacting strongly. Ultimately the reason that "things fall apart" is an inevitable result of the second law of thermodynamics. Even if you could certify that every particle in a controlled system started out interacting weakly and simply colliding with each other at a uniform temperature and pressure, some particles will absolutely inevitably acquire greater and then much greater energies than the other ones in the system through random collisions, thereby endowing the system with greater energy than it started out with. Entropy, I think, is a characterization of this reality. Entropy may be the observation that any such macrostate will unavoidably end up with a proliferation of microstates. As such, there is no way to use energy to "overcome" entropy; it is an error in reasoning. The entropy of the universe was very low at the beginning (it was very ordered, basically; if somewhat colloquially) because the quantum vacuum fluctuations were tiny and "canceled each other out", in a sense. Think of it by using the classical analog of the gas law. As more and more of the fluctuations occurred, the chance that a large one would manifest itself grew in likelihood - and eventually a huge one happened - much like the Maxwell Boltzmann distribution predicts for weakly-interacting particles. Eventually, you WILL get some particles that have to be described by the high-end exponential tail of the function; once this happens they will "escape the system" by creating too many new microstates than can be effectively contained by the previous parameters. And then, fiat lux - let there be light. In a sense, the present "local abatement of chaos" (I love the way Atkins put it) that characterizes our existence is the inevitable journey back down to low entropy - over time scales extremely long. I cannot "prove" this, but I think that entropy is philosophically ekpyrotic - maximum entropy is indistinguishable from zero entropy, because it's all relative. Once you reach maximum entropy at the heat death of the universe, and the creation of a maximum number of microstates, you can extract no more energy for processes and quantum processes take over - the vacuum reasserts itself and the interminable fluctuations interact weakly once again until an especially large perturbation gives birth to a new day. As pertains to the imbalance of matter and antimatter, this is one of the most fascinating problems to me. I suspect it has to do with the conservation of time-parity-invariance from particle physics. There's a particle, I believe it is the J-Psi particle or something, that emits energy from both its left and right sides equally...for a time. then, all of a sudden, for a completely unknown reason for sides that ave thus far been discerned to be precisely equivalent, it emits an extra burst of energy from the left side. We (particle physicists) have no idea why it does this, or what the underlying mechanism is. I am sure I completely botched the explanation - but the essence of the matter still stands. It is of a similar character to solar neutrinos changing their character on the journey from the sun to the earth - there's a difference that we're missing thus far. Finding the answer to this will at least give us some philosophical ideas as to why the universe displayed a preference for matter over antimatter. Maybe.
How is what he saying any different than, I think it was Spinoza's, idea on god as the prime origin? May be wrong about this, but I think nothing as is described here would be equal to infinity using scale invariance. If existence is born of X, and to X it will return, it doesn't really matter if you call X nothing, god, apples, or eleventy. It's still the same hypothesis, correct? No clue on the validity of this, hopefully someone can confirm or explain why i'm an idiot...
I don't think that you're the least bit wrong. It's been years since I've read Spinoza but I think that you're right. It's unfortunately common for some scientists to leave the reservation and substitute a belief system for science - and they're very often enamored with the inevitable metaphysics that they stumble into, very often not realizing that we've already been down whatever road they're on. That is precisely why science is a rigorously disciplined process. You get bias, the wrong answers, and you stop looking for the right questions when you don't follow it and don't realize that you stopped using it. The good professor here has every right to his opinion and he said at the beginning that he was referring to something before the big bang and using his own assumption. Something from nothing is an opinion not supported by evidence. No amount of connecting an opinion to perceived reality makes it more than an opinion. I should like to think that perhaps his point was that it's ok to think outside of the box, to speculate, to consider other views. If true, I'm not sure how well he succeeded with his audience. The irony is that he's an active atheist and he just produced his own creation myth.
it is conservation of mas because what is can not unbe. energy can not be proved that desapear but theoriticaly exist one way that mass can be with zero energy . energy is a concept of mass being in action.
regardless of delivery .. this guy is highlighting some radical ideas that are not part of "pop science", and in a the Riyal Institution no less ... awesome stuff, very thought provoking!
WTF is he rambling on about? He is just saying shit, asserting statements, and building conclusions based on nonsensical chain of arguments... How the hell did he connect energy conservation to time's uniformity, and how does that relate in any sense to the assumed "inheritance" of uniformity from nothing to something, whatever the hell that is?
Noether's theorem. If the laws of physics are consistent through time - that is through translations in time - a quantity, known nowadays as 'energy', must be conserved. If the laws of physics are consistent throughout space - that is through translations and rotations of spatial dimensions - quantities, known nowadays as 'momentum' and 'angular momentum' must be conserved.
this should be the top comment or even better the video description. he sounds like a teenager who smoked his first bong and piles wild assumptions on top of eachother that are at best only very loosly based on anything measured or observed. this is theology, not science.
Uniformity, anisotropy, and emptiness all tacitly invoke our continuum mechanical intuitions of macroscopic space, because they are all properties only of a subset of what we might call spatially distributed sets. That initial wordplay is what allows something to be snuck into nothing. From there, the rest of the fallacious derivation is trivial.
the absolute nothingness is impossible and was impossible and will be impossible.I give you the math 0+0 =0. Darkness is something, lack of space is something. You remove a thing the result is another thing. The nonexistence is nothing. To absolute nothingness exist it must not exist. Its paradoxal
The lack of a thing is not another thing. If I do not have an apple (something), then It does not ever mean that I have an orange (your version of nothing). Your paradox comes as a result of the imperfection of language. We cannot hope to describe what we have never, and likely never will observe. True nothing cannot be a noun, yet we have to use one to name it.
Nothing is only a meaningfull term when considered as the opposite of something. Nothing/something are a dialectical unity, where each opposing element only exist as part of that dialectical unity, and not on itself outside that unity. The combined truth of nothing and being is that one can spontaneously turn into the other and vice versa, which are becoming and ceasing-to-be.
@@seanjones4726 Nothing is normally understood to be the absence of any something. But when considering the case where there is not any something to begin with, you would then have a nothing which would be the absence of absence. Which would be something.
Its a bit problematic talking about nothing as an absolute, since nothing is just defined by something, and forms its opposite, ie nothing is the lack of something. Now, by assuming there is not any something, then neither you have a nothing, since nothing only "exists" in so far its opposite (something) exist. So, terms as nothing and something can only have meaning when considered as a unity, a unity of opposites. Neither of them have any absolute meaning outside of that unity.
Common sense missing - we have had not a single instance in our observation, where something came out of nothing, what to speak of makinh matter follow some vomplex Laws. An obvious logical acceptable ans is an intelligent designer or God.
Theoretical Physicits here: He clearly misunderstanding, or at least, misusing many concepts of physics, the first one I noticed "energy conservation comes from uniformity of time" this is totaly wrong as any first year student knows, the conservation is due "covariance of physical laws with respect to time" that is, physics laws does not change tomorrow or after 100 years, or in other words, physics laws symmetrical with respect to time, becauses energy conserved. While time it self is not uniform, as special relativity states, it depends on the observer. Unfortunately.. I thought it will be interesting lecture.
TMSxYouT I’m sorry there’s no way you are a theoretical physicist. Based on your grammar I am going with 17 year old wanna be with maybe a high school physics course - in which you got a C - under your belt.
Unfortunately his entire perspective is illogical and self-defeating theoretical non-theoretical nonsense. So many logical fallacies exist in his premise alone... leaving out his continued habit of ignoring currently known facts and natural laws. This is the single most disappointing lecture I’ve seen.
I attended this lecture when I was in London and the video is as bad as the live presentation. His degrees are in chemistry and he should stick to that subject. Better yet, stay in retirement.
“Washi woshi “language of the Bible. That’s the expression you have used at the conversation with Hugh Ross. Or you never red the Bible or you are the most primitive human being living on the earth, which simply is so stubborn to admit divine things, exactly as the evil spirit described in the Scriptures. No really intelligent man should ever Tabake you seriously.
I bet he/she, the philosopher you're talking about is not a philosopher at all but a mere theologian. I highly disagree labeling theology as philosophy. Theology as every other subject is in philosophy but picking out one such subject and labeling as philosophy is very wrong.
I have so much respect for this brilliant Physical Chemist. Loved his PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY Textbook!!!
How absolutely nothing gave birth to symmetry?, when you said conservation is a consequence of symmetry?
I remember using this fellow's textbook when I took P Chem back in the 70s. It was very clear.
How absolutely nothing gave birth to symmetry?, when you said conservation is a consequence of symmetry?
I am finally free. Now, I can study science freely!
Nothing he said in this video gave an explanation for the origin of any law in nature. All his attempted explanations used laws themselves.
Absolutely spot on observation of this lecture. It s an excellant lecture, bu, in d eyes of humanity, an it's efforts 2 explain everything, we r still infants in trying 2 understand everything. Maybe it's just a fact tha we l never b able to. And, this s whr we yearn for something higher. And this, s d beginning of our true journey. And being shaped by our destinies 2 something greater. And this, wud b d essence, of an ultimate goal, for Humanity, trying 2 find its Way, in d fog of reality, an maybe discovering, along d Way, tha Faith Hope an Charity an Forgiveness, an Love, r d currency, of the Gods. An this only becomes meaningful, when it has bn, discovered, for Oneself ❤
@@gregorybradley1160 How absolutely nothing gave birth to symmetry?, when you said conservation is a consequence of symmetry?
How absolutely nothing gave birth to symmetry?, when you said conservation is a consequence of symmetry?
Atkins' book Physical Chemistry is the best science book I've ever encountered, a masterpiece of clear writing. If you think this talk is somehow dated and out-of-touch, you are wrong: Atkins knows modern physics at a high level and, like Feynman, he comes off as naive at first, only later do you realize that you've been served some deep concept usually reserved for those with advanced mathematical training. Check out Feynman's QED for a great example of this.
Comparing Atkins to Feynman is an offense against the whole field of physics.
In what way? @@danie7kovacs
This, at least of Boltzmann Distribution @40 mts, was the most beautiful presentation i have ever seen! Thanks :)
Though he is correct in his statement that absolutely nothing is without spacetime, he fails to truly create absolutely nothing when he imposes uniformity and isotopy. Imposing this means there has to be something, a coordinate system of some sort, with which to impose this on. Absolutely nothing can't be more or less dense, but it also can not be uniform. The concept is meaningless without space to measure it relative to. The amount of something contained in some space. But without anything in it, and without space to measure it in we would have 0/0.
Imposing any physical property inherently means we have something present that is capable of having this physical property applied to it. Beyond that, if time does not exist beforehand, there would be an asymmetry in time at the creation of time. So energy would not be conserved at the beginning of time.
The properties of absolutely nothing does seem like a bit of an oxymoron yea
Plato's ideal space is full of absolutely nothing.
My sentiments exactly!
If it is interpreted as “in the limit” then uniformity and isotropy are consistent with his theory.
Mark Morris I think you are referring to 0/0 potentially having a limit that we can use to define it. However the concept of a limit is used to deal with a discontinuous point in a function. The function will approach a value at a discontinuous point from one side, and if the other side approaches the same value we can define the value of that point to be the limit.
This however is not a discontinuity in a function. There simply is no space or time. At least in his own description. The concept of uniformity requires there to be space. So it loses its meaning without space.
Now as to using the concept of limits to deal with the first instance of time, I suppose it is a possible approach. It gets confusing to think about. It isn't that time is zero beforehand. That would just set the starting point to measure time from. It's that it doesn't exist. I am genuinely unsure how you would deal with that mathematically so I don't really have anything to add to that.
Very good talk, thanks for this interesting idea of "Nothing"
Dr Atkins is one of the very few scientists who answer "why" instead of "how", making his argument inevitably metaphysical. Great insights he has got!
Does he though?
Infantile metaphysics, that is.
Phenomenal experience, you travelled along the entire duration i.e from the origin to the present, it's a beautiful present
Ok, some thoughts. In the beginning, his theory was looking like bad metaphysics - like the old rationalist ones, with axioms and entities that came out of nowhere. Then he set course to justify his inicial postulates on the basis of firmly grounded physics, and that was when it became a bit interesting. I thought that perhaps he would present good arguments to condensate and aggregate physical theories into concepts, which would be interesting in a metaphysical speculative sense. But no solid reason was presented, just brief comments and analogies. It would only be relevant to make this conceptualization if he could logically or argumentatively prove that this three concepts are the fundamental "logical atoms" or imperatives of all fundamental physical reality. That is no easy task, and he failed, or he omitted all the revolutionary evidence of the talk. Then he used this unjustified concepts to take relational and causal jumps with no justification. In the end it was impossible to understand if he could see the line between fundamental aspects of reality and theoretical concepts. This is not philosophy. Contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of physics are very serious fields that have lots of interesting and important things to say. This is just opinion.
Right. For example, basic question: how do you define the energy when you start from nothing? However, I think his reflections around what is established in physics and what this can tell us about the world (like questioning the Feynman interpretation of light trajectory as the integral of all possible paths) can be interesting.
However, I am not sure that the first question to solve is the transition from nothing to something, because, first, it's an unsolvable question, and second, perhaps something has always existed. I have the feeling that the interesting question is to know if the laws of the universe (so, let's say, the universe itself, as we cannot separate one from the other) could have been different (and in which ways?), or if they had to be what they are. For this, some-probably mathematically based, if we go with Platon-model involving fundamental concepts (including, why not, modelisation of indolence, anarchy or ignorance) needs to be found. There is already an example of such a trial by great mathematician Alain Connes, explaining that the emergence of time could reside into non-commutative geometry!
"I thought that perhaps he would present good arguments to condensate and aggregate physical theories into concepts, which would be interesting in a metaphysical speculative sense. But no solid reason was presented, just brief comments and analogies."
I was going to make my comment pretty much as what you have said, I'm glad I read yours first.
This was a PERHAPS brave, but ineffective, attempt at explaining these areas; he almost said nothing new. Even his three concepts were badly explained. He may be over-learned, or just too pompous a lecturer, as some academics tend to be.
But for getting a good idea about the conditions of things in these area, there is no better lecture than the recent one by Sean Caroll, a physicist with equally or better learning but much better presentation.
I think it is called "The Big Picture" it will leave you owed, but not speechless, like this guy's lecture, and not boring either.
Nothing exists without something. Something has to be there to govern the state of nothing; otherwise, nothing will almost be anything that we can't imagine. Imagination is actually information. Information is something. We cannot describe nothing without using information. We are now dealing with the new egg and chicken problem. Does nothing exist before information or does information exist first?
It is a mistake to suppose that the elementary particles and forces are constrained in their behavior by some invisible hand we call "The Laws of Nature". As though the laws of nature existed before there was any material for them to work upon. (John 1:1) This is exactly backwards from how the laws of nature were formulated by the scientific method. Laws of nature are descriptions of how nature behaves, as discovered through experience. With better and more accurate precision in observation these descriptions of nature are finely tuned to match the phenomena actually observed.
The value of Pi is a description of nature more precise than the universe can actually manifest.
Laws of nature are not descriptions of how nature behaves... we don't know what nature does. What they are is instructions to ourselves to operate in a way that we can obtain an measurable outcome with an acceptable restricted uncertainty. Like "we don't know what's going on, but if you can manage to do this and this, you will observe something more or less like this other thing happening most likely most of the time".
IuliusPsicofactum Am I right assuming we’re both fans of David Hume?
Lost me at 13 when the advert popped up in the middle of a sentence and it made more sense.
There must be a lot of either creationists or extremely smart astrophysicists in a comment section.
I like the manner in which Peter Atkins explains the laws of nature.
I never dare to say that the universe started from NOTHING.
What I feel comfortable with, is the idea of two-phased array Radio Frequency sources, where at least two electromagnetic coherent sources intermingle to add cumulatively or destructively. In shaping radiating patterns of antennas, one can phase the Electromagnetic sources to produce nodes and antinodes where if one walks around the polar pattern one could meet locations where there are no resultant electromagnetic fields and there are locations where there is a resultant electromagnetic field.
This phased action and results in two electromagnetic fields describe evolution itself be it shaping matter or the unwritten laws of nature.
Laws and evolution and natural selection came about due to IGNORANCE AND CHAOS of not knowing in which direction to move and to react and all particles and energies are ignorant of the paths to be taken but they must pay the consequences of the paths they chose to take.
Let us take the wavelengths of a light source wanting to travel from location A to location B where the light wavelengths emerge in all directions as they are absolutely ignorant of the law of transmission so they take all the available paths. Those wavelengths which travel in straight lines to the target they will remain in phase and would be cumulative by the time they reach the target so they remain in existence and they will be useful to be used to illuminate the target. All the other numerous wavelengths which due to their ignorance chose to take curvacious or curly paths rather than a straight line then the law included in that path would cause a phase change between the wavelength and so a destructive effect will be included in that curved path. The consequences of this ignorance of traveling in any path of their choice resulted in one natural law being better than the other as all other "curvatious" laws caused a phase change between the wavelengths and they destroyed themselves. This is the manner in which natural selection chooses the law, and how mass forms into the different plants and creatures and humans we know of.
Ignorance permits entities to move in any manner they like but they all have to pay the consequences of their choice. All those choices which form a stable condition are termed as the natural laws of nature.
I like Peter Atkins, especially when he says such things as - to paraphrase - his book is one full of words.
Nevertheless I think God not only can but must exist.
Love to watch lectures, but this is absolutely boring
It's not just boring, it's muddled, circular and utterly full of irrelevance. It would take a good speaker 1 minute to explain the first 15 minutes and it wouldn't demand so much of an audience to be constantly grasping at the straws of Atkin's feeble and fanciful arguments. There's an expression in portuguese that perfectly describes this lecture: "it's full of hay" - like a scarecrow, it has the semblance of reality, but no actual substance. His constant little anecdotes, asides and commentary add absolutely nothing to his already empty postulates... and you're left hanging there waiting desperately for a hint of insight.
Old scientists talk rubbish..it is the fate of us all
Great lecture, thank you!
How can "absolutely nothing" be homogeneous when it doesn't exist in space?
If what you’re talking about has properties then it ain’t Nothing!
If nothing = absolutely empty; then absolutely empty = no energy. But how can energy (our universe) emerge from no energy? And don't tell me our universe is just a dispersion of energy and the sum of it is 0. Because that would still mean, a force must have dispersed the energy in the fist place.
Look up quantum fluctuations of vacuum
@@tomroyca I can't wrap my mind around it.
@@steffen5121 I had issues with this too. The idea is that on the quantum level particles can pop up into existence as a pair of particle and anti particle. With total mass/energy equals zero. We actually observe this in reality.
But the problem with that idea is that you have to presuppose then that quantum vacuum is eternal and it existed prior to the local presentation of our universe. And this is unfalsifiable as far as I know
@@tomroyca Yeah. The problem I have with that is, that it evades empric methods by definition. It's an axiom that cannot be proven or disproven, like the transcendend existence of a God.
@@steffen5121 what do you mean? The actual event of particles popping into existence or presup of the existence of eternal quantum vacuum?
Went off the rails of science into a quagmire of assumption that says more about him than the nature of the universe.
Interesting but frustrating. Don't isotropy and uniformity require space? Doesn't rolling over require time? Is the presentation wild speculation or scientific consensus? I'm used to RI physics being the latter, if it's not, shouldn't it be flagged at the start?
How absolutely nothing gave birth to symmetry?, when you said conservation is a consequence of symmetry?
Man, this guy is a legend! Every science and engeneering freshman knows him hahahah.
Why ?
Everything, all things without distinction or definition is identical to "absolutely nothing". Consider a black canvas with a single pink shape of a human without any outline. If you continue adding shapes of all conceivable objects until the entire canvas is absolutely pink then everything is there, all things in the universe are present on the canvas but without distinction or definition nothing is there. If everything was pink then it might as well be black, there would be no sight, it would be blindness or absolutely nothing.
With GR, time is more wiggly, and simultaneity isn't preserved. In QM Electrons tunnel faster than light, but that Energy seems to disappear. I agree with some elements of your main point, but I suspect your approach may need slight modifications.
Would have preferred physicist to give this talk, but I think the short answer is "we do not know". I do not think anything could emerge from nothing, there is no nothing in our space-time and I admit I am not very good at imagining "nothing" outside of our universe. My best guess (though I will happily admit that probably wrong) is that our universe is part of some higher order universe. I do not think it is something that can be proven though, given the constant speed of light and expansion speed of the universe which seems to be really big, I think we are too far from the edges to be able to see them. And if we live on multidimensional surface there are no edges to see at all. Also the space seems to have negative curvature across large scales which is rather strange and hard to imagine concept.
Option 1) something from nothing, in the beginning was nothing, then it exploded.
Option 2) perpetual motion, the universe has always existed but never runs down.
Option 3) intelligent design, there is an intent or purpose involved in the creation of the universe.
Special note; we cannot prove at this time what the engine could possibly be that started everything in moving (prime mover).
Nothing is the absence of variation at every scale.
so nothing is something at every scale.. soo deep
Intelligent design doesn't answer the nature of the designer i.e. is he perpetual or did he come from nothing.
sound and fury, signifying nothing. nice woo woo though
"Nothing" exists nowhere but in the human imagination. It is a concept without a referent. It arises from the idea of the absence of specific things or classes of things from a defined space. As in: "There are no more cookies in the bag. The bag now contains nothing." From this every day casual concept, good for expressing the idea of specific sorts of absences, we get the unfortunate idea of "the absence of everything". Instead of asking, "Why is there something rather than nothing?", we should be asking why & how we mistakenly allowed such an absurd animal as a mythical existential "nothing" to capture our thinking.
"at every scale" in "Nothing is the absence of variation at every scale" is redundant.
Is a constant 'nothing'? It has no variation.
So, there was a conceptual "NOTHING AT ALL", where not even information, space, time or energy had been born yet.
Still, there was Indolence, Anarchy and Ignorance. Well, OK, but you gotta convince me about that.
:o)
Jack Daniel If there is - and + in the 0 then the thing that made them split would be outside of the 0 so either way the idea doesn’t work. If absolutely nothing is going on why the change?
@@autodestructive when "NOTHING" means other things, then it doesn't mean NOTHING anymore.
Tanks for the content.
An ancient idea with new ideas for clothes. Worth a thought, although not my philosophy.
One can surmise that the "bench" referred to at the beginning of the lecture is not, in fact, the original bench, but rather a reproduction.
Yikes - a bit beyond me. Thanks very much for a clear and clearly explained model in any case. I wonder if a justifiable theory can be built on the hypothesis that consciousness creates the universe. From what it is aware of and what it is not. Thanks again Prof. Atkins. Will probably have to watch your presentation again - the law of my nature is that it's kind of dense. 🙂
Um, what? I watched the whole thing, but he lost me when he said "Nothing rolls over and becomes Something" WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN? nothing is invariant, empty, and isotropic, sure, why not. But "There is no energy in the universe and no angular momentum, but it looks like there is..."
The reality of nothing is the combined sum of the precognition of the awareness other than those known and everything it dose not. As soon as the chaos of darkness and emptiness realizes there is the presence of anarchy, sloth, and ignorance man is there to be it's example.
Absolutely nothing can't have a propensity because a propensity is something, not nothing.
If it's nothing, absolutely nothing, then it has no properties, that could or could not be uniform. Absolutely nothing, can't be uniform because uniform something is same the same and different spots. Both spots and thing that is the same are somethings, not no things.
It's not isotropic because there is nothing to measure or directions to measure it from.
It can't be empty because emptiness requires a space that is not filled and that is something.
If your talking about absolutely nothing then there really isn't any thing to say about it, because it isn't even an it. If it rolls over then it is something.
That the universe had a beginning is an unmentioned assumption. Conservation laws are a big hint that nothing was never the case.
Why is it people (e.g. Krauss and now Atkins) keep saying nothing and then start talking about something?
Logic is observation
@@Bogusgal Logic is application of reason.
@@myothersoul1953 Logic is an art.
I learnt absolutely nothing from this talk. I would like this talk to return to the nothing from which it states everything came. If there is nothing to study and nothing to know, why is everything so bloody expensive? It should cost nothing!
Bruh...
I don't know how anyone else feels, but I find the cubic background extremely distracting; the colors alone contrast in an ugly way with the soft tones of the lecture theater. The sharp angularity of the cubes contrasts the soft rounded curves of the famous desk. The cubes distract me so much that they vie for attention with the lecturer, which is not a good thing. Surely a better background could be devised more in keeping with the rest of the environment which would not distract people from the lecture taking place.
Awesome lecture thanks for the share
Speaking as a physicist: This talk gravely misrepresents several physics ideas that are already well-understood, and reaches some ridiculous conclusions; meaningless statements like "the total angular momentum _was_ zero _before the beginning of time_". His representations of Noether's Theorem, path integrals and gauge theories are somewhat accurate, but dumbed down so far that there is nothing of value left. His speculations about the origin of the universe are overly simplistic and are neither good physics nor good philosophy.
Nothing is an imagine, the imagine is something. Something go for nothing ...
This speech is something out of nothing
Common sense missing - we have had not a single instance in our observation, where something came out of nothing, what to speak of makinh matter follow some vomplex Laws. An obvious logical acceptable ans is an intelligent designer or God.
If you call everything that preceded his speech ‘nothing’ then you are right. Obviously, however, this makes no sense.
Peter Atkins is acting, not as a scientist but as a philosopher.
...and one of the worst.
And a comedian with an extremely dry wit that passes right over the audience’s heads.
Energy in our universe at cosmic scales is not conserved because of the acceleration of our universe. General relativity clearly states this, an example of energy being destroyed is the redshift of photons that travel across the universe. I suppose that this is what happens when you let a chemist give physics lectures, do us all a favor and please just stick to chemestry and leave complicated things like physics to physicists. This lecture is a complete waste of time.
Disregarding the validity or usefulness of this lecture, Isn't the redshift occurring because the universe is apparently expanding? Therefore, work being done to explain the transfer of energy.
You would have to consider all forms of energy. Expanding spacetime (dark energy) adds energy, since dark energy has constant energy density. Gravitational energy potential however becomes more negative in an expanding spacetime. Etc.
If nothing moves by nothing , the nothing exists!
Nothingness is everything.
How absolutely nothing gave birth to symmetry?, when you said conservation is a consequence of symmetry?
Light doesn’t experience time so there’s no least time ?
The very idea of nothing is a result of a measuring apparatus that lacks sophistication. Atkins talks of absolutely nothing - which is a conceptual error even philosophically. It is, if nothing else, a violation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle; primarily with the conjugate variables of position and momentum - but even with those of energy and time, as more involved eigen vectors.
This assumption of ours begins simply because we have chemical machines as eyes - and thus, there are limits to what they can perceive. It is because of this reality that when we remove a can of soda, for example, from the table, we describe the space that it used to inhabit as "empty" now. Of course it is not empty, since there are oxygen and nitrogen atoms (mostly) that rush in to inhabit the extremely evanescent vacuum that the removal of the can induced.
Even in a vacuum, we know from elementary particle physics that virtual particles are flashing in and out of "existence" courtesy of an energy credit provided by the principle that carries Heisenberg's namesake.
The Big Bang is simply an inevitable, statistical fluctuation that underwent an inflationary epoch (Guth of MIT), much like its classical analog in the three-body problem. In the land before time, so to speak, such things have "all the time" in the world to eventually manifest themselves - remember, in the land of time that we inhabit, which Einstein revealed as ancillary to the presence of mass and energy - extremely unlikely events "take time to happen." When time is not a factor because gravity has yet to secede from Grand Unification, then it "doesn't matter" how unlikely something will happen is - it WILL happen. Even a principle as hallowed as the conservation of energy is not actually preserved over time scales very, very small in the elementary particle realm...in fact, this reality is inscribed into the very essence of quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics, where we use the Feynman Calculus to discern which statistically significant events contribute the most to the calculation of, say, the probability that an anti-proton collides with a proton to produce the energies observed at those velocities.
At 15:50 or so, Atkins is wrong - insofar as I can discern. He states that the universe emerged from the uniformity of nothing - but that isn't true. It emerged as a result of an especially large surge of energy associated with interminable quantum vacuum fluctuations. The very ideas of both uniformity and nothingness are errors in reasoning derived from an unsophisticated measuring apparatus - our human eyes. we describe a table, for example, as "smooth"; even though on the submicroscopic level, it looks like the many jagged peaks of the Himalayas, and on the subatomic level, it can be almost indistinguishable from the air that occupies the volume above it! Of course, Atkins might have stated the bit about uniformity as an expedient - which is what I suspect. As such, he's not really wrong, right? He then would've had to explain to the audience some of the more esoteric realities of the quantum vacuum, Heisenberg's Principle, etc. I don't know - perhaps I'm being charitable.
The talk got really good around gauge theories though - it's a perspective with which I am intimately familiar, but Atkins fleshed it out well for the given time slot.
Further on, Atkins states that the gas law emerges when you don't know what individual molecules are doing; I suppose one could put it that way - but it obscures more than it illuminates. Much more accurately (arguably), the gas law applies when the particles are weakly-interacting. You can actually use it to describe ANY system in which a multitude of particles are weakly interacting over time scales long. The emergent equation is the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution function - and it can describe everything from why the sun shines, to why it rains, or to one of my favorite lectures to the interested - why your cup of coffee MUST cool down. If the particles are strongly interacting (such that, for example, they chemically react) then the gas law fails. So, in a sense, I would argue that you DO know what the individual particles are doing - the same thing that ALL particles are doing when they are not interacting strongly.
Ultimately the reason that "things fall apart" is an inevitable result of the second law of thermodynamics. Even if you could certify that every particle in a controlled system started out interacting weakly and simply colliding with each other at a uniform temperature and pressure, some particles will absolutely inevitably acquire greater and then much greater energies than the other ones in the system through random collisions, thereby endowing the system with greater energy than it started out with. Entropy, I think, is a characterization of this reality. Entropy may be the observation that any such macrostate will unavoidably end up with a proliferation of microstates. As such, there is no way to use energy to "overcome" entropy; it is an error in reasoning.
The entropy of the universe was very low at the beginning (it was very ordered, basically; if somewhat colloquially) because the quantum vacuum fluctuations were tiny and "canceled each other out", in a sense. Think of it by using the classical analog of the gas law. As more and more of the fluctuations occurred, the chance that a large one would manifest itself grew in likelihood - and eventually a huge one happened - much like the Maxwell Boltzmann distribution predicts for weakly-interacting particles. Eventually, you WILL get some particles that have to be described by the high-end exponential tail of the function; once this happens they will "escape the system" by creating too many new microstates than can be effectively contained by the previous parameters. And then, fiat lux - let there be light.
In a sense, the present "local abatement of chaos" (I love the way Atkins put it) that characterizes our existence is the inevitable journey back down to low entropy - over time scales extremely long. I cannot "prove" this, but I think that entropy is philosophically ekpyrotic - maximum entropy is indistinguishable from zero entropy, because it's all relative. Once you reach maximum entropy at the heat death of the universe, and the creation of a maximum number of microstates, you can extract no more energy for processes and quantum processes take over - the vacuum reasserts itself and the interminable fluctuations interact weakly once again until an especially large perturbation gives birth to a new day.
As pertains to the imbalance of matter and antimatter, this is one of the most fascinating problems to me. I suspect it has to do with the conservation of time-parity-invariance from particle physics. There's a particle, I believe it is the J-Psi particle or something, that emits energy from both its left and right sides equally...for a time. then, all of a sudden, for a completely unknown reason for sides that ave thus far been discerned to be precisely equivalent, it emits an extra burst of energy from the left side. We (particle physicists) have no idea why it does this, or what the underlying mechanism is. I am sure I completely botched the explanation - but the essence of the matter still stands. It is of a similar character to solar neutrinos changing their character on the journey from the sun to the earth - there's a difference that we're missing thus far. Finding the answer to this will at least give us some philosophical ideas as to why the universe displayed a preference for matter over antimatter. Maybe.
How is what he saying any different than, I think it was Spinoza's, idea on god as the prime origin? May be wrong about this, but I think nothing as is described here would be equal to infinity using scale invariance. If existence is born of X, and to X it will return, it doesn't really matter if you call X nothing, god, apples, or eleventy. It's still the same hypothesis, correct?
No clue on the validity of this, hopefully someone can confirm or explain why i'm an idiot...
I don't think that you're the least bit wrong. It's been years since I've read Spinoza but I think that you're right.
It's unfortunately common for some scientists to leave the reservation and substitute a belief system for science - and they're very often enamored with the inevitable metaphysics that they stumble into, very often not realizing that we've already been down whatever road they're on.
That is precisely why science is a rigorously disciplined process. You get bias, the wrong answers, and you stop looking for the right questions when you don't follow it and don't realize that you stopped using it.
The good professor here has every right to his opinion and he said at the beginning that he was referring to something before the big bang and using his own assumption. Something from nothing is an opinion not supported by evidence.
No amount of connecting an opinion to perceived reality makes it more than an opinion.
I should like to think that perhaps his point was that it's ok to think outside of the box, to speculate, to consider other views. If true, I'm not sure how well he succeeded with his audience.
The irony is that he's an active atheist and he just produced his own creation myth.
it is conservation of mas because what is can not unbe. energy can not be proved that desapear but theoriticaly exist one way that mass can be with zero energy . energy is a concept of mass being in action.
regardless of delivery .. this guy is highlighting some radical ideas that are not part of "pop science", and in a the Riyal Institution no less ... awesome stuff, very thought provoking!
WTF is he rambling on about? He is just saying shit, asserting statements, and building conclusions based on nonsensical chain of arguments... How the hell did he connect energy conservation to time's uniformity, and how does that relate in any sense to the assumed "inheritance" of uniformity from nothing to something, whatever the hell that is?
Noether's theorem. If the laws of physics are consistent through time - that is through translations in time - a quantity, known nowadays as 'energy', must be conserved. If the laws of physics are consistent throughout space - that is through translations and rotations of spatial dimensions - quantities, known nowadays as 'momentum' and 'angular momentum' must be conserved.
this should be the top comment or even better the video description. he sounds like a teenager who smoked his first bong and piles wild assumptions on top of eachother that are at best only very loosly based on anything measured or observed. this is theology, not science.
Rules of nature plays
A wonderful talk :)
Uniformity, anisotropy, and emptiness all tacitly invoke our continuum mechanical intuitions of macroscopic space, because they are all properties only of a subset of what we might call spatially distributed sets. That initial wordplay is what allows something to be snuck into nothing. From there, the rest of the fallacious derivation is trivial.
But how did symmetries emerge?
Maybe it was required for optimum use of organs and some sort of natural balance.
Nothing matters.
with all due respect lot of bs about nothing
The two yolks inside the egg beg to differ with you sir😎
3=3, but 3 apples and 3 oranges are not equal.
the absolute nothingness is impossible and was impossible and will be impossible.I give you the math 0+0 =0. Darkness is something, lack of space is something. You remove a thing the result is another thing. The nonexistence is nothing. To absolute nothingness exist it must not exist. Its paradoxal
The lack of a thing is not another thing. If I do not have an apple (something), then It does not ever mean that I have an orange (your version of nothing). Your paradox comes as a result of the imperfection of language. We cannot hope to describe what we have never, and likely never will observe. True nothing cannot be a noun, yet we have to use one to name it.
Nothing is only a meaningfull term when considered as the opposite of something. Nothing/something are a dialectical unity, where each opposing element only exist as part of that dialectical unity, and not on itself outside that unity. The combined truth of nothing and being is that one can spontaneously turn into the other and vice versa, which are becoming and ceasing-to-be.
@@seanjones4726 Nothing is normally understood to be the absence of any something. But when considering the case where there is not any something to begin with, you would then have a nothing which would be the absence of absence. Which would be something.
@@seanjones4726 We have (it exists). If it does not exist, there's something else in the place of it
what is the origin of the law of symmetry?
It is what it is
Its a bit problematic talking about nothing as an absolute, since nothing is just defined by something, and forms its opposite, ie nothing is the lack of something. Now, by assuming there is not any something, then neither you have a nothing, since nothing only "exists" in so far its opposite (something) exist. So, terms as nothing and something can only have meaning when considered as a unity, a unity of opposites. Neither of them have any absolute meaning outside of that unity.
Is this Guy a philosopher a physicist or something in between. ?
whos at 2022?
Atkins over Dawkins.
In a hand to hand combat situation, Atkins has the edge.
This guy gets it! ;)
Why Does Professor Dawkins speak about Theology ?
This theory satisfies his hypothesis that it is absolutely nothing. I want my time back. Luckily the delta is 0... I think???
Darwin thought his theory explained the Doctrine of Uniformity
Common sense missing - we have had not a single instance in our observation, where something came out of nothing, what to speak of makinh matter follow some vomplex Laws. An obvious logical acceptable ans is an intelligent designer or God.
i feel like my brain got hit with something.. some electron mabye
Me too 😌 I'd like to dig a bit ☺️ deeper 😜 but my stick is not long 😂 enough 🙂 I suppose that is the law of nature. C'est la vie!
Theoretical Physicits here:
He clearly misunderstanding, or at least, misusing many concepts of physics, the first one I noticed "energy conservation comes from uniformity of time" this is totaly wrong as any first year student knows, the conservation is due "covariance of physical laws with respect to time" that is, physics laws does not change tomorrow or after 100 years, or in other words, physics laws symmetrical with respect to time, becauses energy conserved.
While time it self is not uniform, as special relativity states, it depends on the observer.
Unfortunately.. I thought it will be interesting lecture.
TMSxYouT I’m sorry there’s no way you are a theoretical physicist. Based on your grammar I am going with 17 year old wanna be with maybe a high school physics course - in which you got a C - under your belt.
spaceman
He's actually joking. Right?
Who made the laws?? They didn't make themselves
THE SECRET CODE OF CREATION
DR. JASON LISLE
WHY DOES NATURE OBEY MATHMATICAL LAWS
Quantum field theory seems to blow his theory out the window. The space vacuum is teeming with field activity.
Unfortunately his entire perspective is illogical and self-defeating theoretical non-theoretical nonsense. So many logical fallacies exist in his premise alone... leaving out his continued habit of ignoring currently known facts and natural laws. This is the single most disappointing lecture I’ve seen.
Peter Atkins appears to be Deepak Chopra's nightmare.
Nothing is a self-contradictory concept. As soon as you start talking about nothing, all your deductions from that point on, are rubbish.
I attended this lecture when I was in London and the video is as bad as the live presentation. His degrees are in chemistry and he should stick to that subject. Better yet, stay in retirement.
Nah you didn't. You're a homeless russian teenager writting hate comments on a stolen cellphone for put.in coin.
“Washi woshi “language of the Bible. That’s the expression you have used at the conversation with Hugh Ross. Or you never red the Bible or you are the most primitive human being living on the earth, which simply is so stubborn to admit divine things, exactly as the evil spirit described in the Scriptures. No really intelligent man should ever Tabake you seriously.
Evolution did it😂
I bet he/she, the philosopher you're talking about is not a philosopher at all but a mere theologian.
I highly disagree labeling theology as philosophy. Theology as every other subject is in philosophy but picking out one such subject and labeling as philosophy is very wrong.
In my whole life I've met fewer than 6 people who have 'brains the size of a planet'
Peter Atkins is one.
Read some though provoking comments here , u will observe his brain shrinking down to the size of an atom.
Sadly Peter we have no example of an absolute nothing.
Well fuckin duh this universe is the original universe, what use is it talking about a universe before time?
Lol
Conservation of energy is right, but how it was understood is wrong. #EnergyCanBeCreated.
borrrr-ring. Terrible speaker.