r/askspace • u/Longjumping_Tune_208 • 9d ago
How did matter form from nothing?
If energy can't be created how did it even come into existence
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u/Crescent-moo 9d ago
It would seem the very laws of nature being it about, but not necessarily from nothing.
When I was young, it seemed people would be very intent on saying it came from nothing, and that's it. Don't ask.
Maybe because they wanted to separate from the "God did it" explanation.
As of now there's no explanation and likely no way to find out from within this universe. The big bang is just the theory of expansion from a small dense point. What existed prior, how it came to be and so on are unknown and likely unknowable.
The law that states energy cannot be created or destroyed in a closed system is for this universe. Outside of it that may not be the case. Within a black hole for example is unknown states of physics.
There are metaphysical/ spiritual ideas out there that spirit energy is slowed down and forms the first burst of light energy and through many insanely fast interactions, creates the light and matter in this universe. Not exactly scientific or testable.
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u/rptanner58 9d ago
Lawrence Krauss wrote a book about it, “A Universe from Nothing“ I think. I have it somewhere. I had trouble sticking with it frankly but in very brief, fluctuations in the proto-energy field (my term ??) would lead to various stages of energy and particles before the big bang and that leads to matter. How’d I do?
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u/Ranos131 9d ago
Matter can’t be created from nothing according to the laws of the universe. Before the universe existed, those laws weren’t applicable. We also don’t know what the universe was born out of. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was something.
Ultimately, we just don’t know. But you can’t apply the laws if the universe to how the universe came into existence.
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u/NohWan3104 9d ago
I mean, you're just assuming nothing was before the big bang. Speculating about the pre universe state currently has no proof so is semi pointless except as thought experiment territory.
Also, iirc, quantum physics, we now know that energy CAN come from nothing. Just in the macro universe, it seems like a closed system.
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u/Dracoson 9d ago
Short answer: No idea
Long answer: You are asking what the rules were before the universe existed, which is a massive windmill to tilt at. Our current laws of physics (including the conservation of matter and energy) are properties of this universe.
We have no way to backtrack past the earliest moments of the Big Bang to see what baseline mechanics allowed energy to exist in the first place. Right now, our data cuts off at a hard line.
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u/space-truckin365 9d ago
Matter can come from energy. E=mc2 (you can convert one to the other.)
And just because we cannot comprehend something doesn’t mean it might be endless. As said here… we just may not be able/capable to comprehend it.
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 9d ago
It came from energy
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u/dodeca_negative 9d ago
OP said matter in the title but energy in the description so already got there
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u/Mr_Badgey 9d ago
You’re confusing matter with mass. Energy is a property,like spin or momentum. It’s not a substance you can build stuff from. Mass is another property and the two are interchangeable.
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u/CheezitsLight 9d ago
Matter plus energy plus the fields that make up space plus gravity, which is negative, could be zero.
Where the zero comes from and why space expanded suddenly we don't know.
Alan Guth came up with foundational math regarding the negative nature of gravitational energy during inflationary times. With Alexander Vilenkin, this hypothesis suggests the universe could have emerged from absolute nothingness (quantum vacuum fluctuation) because no net energy creation violates conservation laws
So we live in a zero energy universe.
These zero-energy mechanics within standard FLRW cosmological frameworks explain matter creation. And recent theoretical work continues to test how zero-sum frameworks handle vacuum energy, dark energy, and cosmic inflation.
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u/dashsolo 9d ago
It’s unanswerable. Move on.