Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!jade!violet.berkeley.edu!lagache From: lagache@violet.berkeley.edu (Edouard Lagache) Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech Subject: Physical objection to Vacuum Genesis (Try II) Message-ID: <4148@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Sun, 28-Jun-87 02:04:45 EDT Article-I.D.: jade.4148 Posted: Sun Jun 28 02:04:45 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jun-87 09:47:28 EDT Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: lagache@violet.berkeley.edu (Edouard Lagache) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 82 Keywords: Space-Time, Alternative universes, Hubble, Relativity Summary: Problems with infinite regress and the uncertainty principle I have obviously failed to explained the physics behind my Physical objection to Vacuum Genesis. So at the risk of beating a dead horse lets run it through one more time. The result of Enstein's and Hubble's work indicated that space it itself expanding. The standard analogy is that of the surface of a balloon. Paint galaxies on a balloon, and then blow up the balloon. Every galaxy gets further away from all others. If you let the air out of the balloon you run the universe backward. If you suck all the air out of a perfect balloon you get the Big Bang particle. The surface of a balloon is a 2 dimensional equivalent of our universe. Of course, all school kids ask why we can't travel through the inside of the balloon instead of only on its surface. That is where the analogy breaks down, we are *bound* to the equivalent of the surface of that balloon, and *ALL* the physics we know about concerns that surface - NOTHING ELSE! What does this have to do with vacuum genesis? All the "vacuum" that scientists have ever observed was created by the big bang, just all the space between the dots on the balloon were created by blowing up the balloon. Since "Big Bang" vacuum is the only vacuum that has ever been observed, scientists simply have *NO* empirical data of the vacuum that the "Vacuum Genesis Particle" would have arisen out of. Matthew P Wiener in his note of June 27, suggested that the vacuum genesis particle would have been created in "the vacuum that modern physicists have been studying all along." That statement just ain't true. To return to the balloon analogy, it would be the same as saying the space on the surface of the balloon is *identical* with the air in which we blow up the balloon. Thus we arrive at the basis of my objection. Present Physics states that not only all matter and energy but all space and time were created in the Big Bang. Yet, Vacuum Genesis attempts to "reserve" some of that space-time for the Big Bang Particle to be created in. This does not preclude the possibility of Vacuum Genesis, but it does *require* the assumption of another universe that obeys the same physical laws as our universe. Physics cannot have its cake and eat it too. Either space-time is bounded by the Big Bang and thus we need another universe for the Big Bang, or some our universe "leaked" from the Big Bang, and there is something very wrong with relativity and few other things. Some consequences. 1.) If there is some other universe in which our universe was created, then we have *no* scientific knowledge of it. The reason is simple. Science is based on empirical observations of the "physical" world where "physical" has come to mean something created in the Big Bang (either matter or energy). By definition we cannot observe things outside our Big Bang created universe, thus while we can create theories by the ton (it is called speculation) we have no way to "scientifically" test them. 2.) There is no reason to believe that our physical laws apply to any other universe. This follows from 1.) and Hume's skepticism on inductive logic. 3.) A infinite regress of "vacuum genesis" creation sequences is not a "scientifically" acceptable theory because it has a zero probability. The probability of the creation of an ultra energetic particle via the uncertainty principle is extremely small. If it is necessary to have two such events then the probability is extremely small number squared. The probability of an infinite number of such events is an extremely small number raised to an infinite power - which is zero! Thus, if one must postulate an infinite number of vacuum genesis events, I can prove that the universe doesn't exist! Well 600 words later, and I find myself just as inclined to unsubscribe to this group as I am to send this note. Rather than waste what feeble brain power is left to decide the issue, I leave it to my readers to decide. Edouard Lagache School of Education U.C. Berkeley lagache@violet.berkeley.edu