Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created from Nothing

mr_3ntropy writes "Speaking to a sold out crowd at the Berkeley Physics Oppenheimer Lecture, Hawking said yesterday that he now believes the universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing. He said more work is needed to prove this but we have time because 'Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.' There is also a Webcast available (Realplayer or Real Alternative required)."

Sounds like...

Sounds like his speech was Much Ado About Nothing

Eternity

"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end."

Sure, it may feel like an eternity, but that's what it takes to get a decent table at Milliways.

Re:Eternity

"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end."

I think we've all sat through a few lectures like that.

REAL AUDIO?

couldnt they just give you the text and let windows text to speech engine say it? It would almost be like if you were there!

Re:REAL AUDIO?

use Dr. Sbaitso

Re:REAL AUDIO?

couldnt they just give you the text and let windows text to speech engine say it?

In related news, Stephen Hawking has written a letter to his relative discussing the future of the universe: "Dear Aunt, Kill Delete Select All".

Sounds like he's starting to believe

May he be touched by His noodly appendage. Ramen.

Much Ado...

Actually, it reads like TFSummary was much ado about something wrong. I went to a lot of trouble and such and RTFA'ed, but I don't see anything from the summary in the article.

I see a mention of "inflation," and a poke at the God Team, but I don't see any mention of "nothing." (If somebody has a transcript, I might be bothered to look for the promised proclamation, but I certainly couldn't find it in the article.) Mr. Hawking has apparently just pretended to have an understanding of the un-understandable problem that sits at the beginning of anyone's understanding of everything: something exists, where nothing used to.

Sure, the idea of an abrupt Creation, or "Design," of the universe lets us joke about what God was doing before he got around to Creation, but the metaphor of water (or, let's suppose, some kind of cosmic stew) boiling into steam/universes leaves us with the same problem that we had in the first place: where in the [space larger than a universe] did the water/stew come from?

As I read it, the exact same problem has been reached again - and Religion and Science both require a leap of perfect faith over the gap that is The Beginning of It All.

Pfft - yeah right.

If that were true, how did the earth end up sitting on the back of a giant turtle? And where did all the other turtles that *they're* sitting on come from?

Hawking is such a hack.

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

It's turtles all the way down my friend!

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

for those of you out there who are missing the funny [wikipedia.org]..

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

slight correction, after all these years and years of eternity, no doubt the turtle is swimming through elephant poop

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

"There was, for example, the theory that A'Tuin had come from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, into nowhere, for all time. This theory was popular among academics. An alternative, favoured by those of a religious persuasion, was that A'Tuin was crawling from the Birthplace to the Time of Mating, as were all the stars in the sky which were, obviously, also carried by giant turtles. When they arrived they would briefly and passionately mate, for the first and only time, and from that fiery union new turtles would be born to carry a new pattern of worlds. This was known as the Big Bang hypothesis."

- Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic

hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

the interesting thing about theories is that they all attempt to explain something. why there are bumfights between bible thumpers and scientists three times a day over these things has always mystified me.

Not sure why that's antagonistic

To be fair, this cuts both ways (liberal and conservative). I frequently see comments that people assume are antagonistic and feel that the antagonism is in the ears of the, um, belistener.

As someone with a fairly good training in physics, I read this statement to be a commentary on Hawking's annoyance with the question of what came before "time" began. Many religious people have attempted to reconcile the Big Bang with Judeo-Christian beliefs by having God be responsible for the Big Bang. I think that such an allusion should not be taken as necessarily antagonistic.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

"What was God doing before He made the world? Was He preparing hell for people who asked such questions?" Now, rediculous stuff comes from the other side as well; but when incredibly smart and esteemed scientists like Hawking make such statements that show an animosity toward and lack of understanding of religion, it might antagonize people.

Lack of understanding? He was quoting St. Augustine [jsrsys.com].

It's a quote he uses a lot. Read a lot of Hawking's speeches and you'll see that he rehashes old material endlessly; it's a hell of a job for him to actually go through the labour of typing out anything new, what with his condition, so he copies and pastes wherever possible from previous works and speeches. Whole paragraphs tend to get copied from Brief History to this day.

The full quote from the book was:

"As we shall see, the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: What did God do before he created the universe? Augustine didn't reply: He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions. Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe. [Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 8]"

Thus Augustine's idea of time is in full agreement with Hawking's: that time is a function of the universe, so 'before creation' is a meaningless phrase.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

And how I wish some of the anti-religion slashdot types would take some time to actually understand some theology and philosophy, and the history of both. Augustine set the stage for many disciples- in the 4th century no less.

The East disagrees. Augustine really set the stage for the Great Schism with his views on the atonement and his proto-scholasticism, while the Orthodox Church--and arguably the undivided Church East and West before Augustine--have always preferred semi-Pelagianism and apophatic theology. Still, Augustine is venerated as a saint by the East as well, but because of his fine apologetics and moral example, not because of his problematic theology.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

Richard Swinburne, the foremost living philosopher of religion and an orthodox Christian, is one of a number of theist philosophers who hold that God is everlasting, that is, existing yesterday, today, and tomorrow, as opposed to timeless, that is, existing outside of time and being knowing for sure the future deeds of agents with free will.

That seems... tricky. If God exists in time like the rest of us, and cannot for instance accurately see the future, then we have a God subject to physics, subject to general relativity and the lightspeed limit. A God who sits within the universe in an inertial reference frame and who is just one more observer within the relativistic framework.

I'm far more comfortable with the idea of God as an entity wholly outside spacetime, subject to totally different laws if indeed subject to any at all, and free to inspect and perhaps to amend the whole four (or more) dimensional extent of the Universe at will. Put him in time and either you elevate time beyond the Universe of relativistic spacetime into God's domain, or you confine God within the Universe with the rest of us.

Re:Not really

Real scientists...

Right, Maxwell, Newton, Pascal, Kepler, Faraday, etc. I'm sure you wouldn't descend from your lofty perch to talk to such as these.

Re:Many "real" scientists are religious

The last number I saw, which I don't have an authoritative reference for, said 20-25% of physicists believe in God, compared to ~90% of the general population. The percentage is higher when you consider all scientists, but still, science is not a very religious occupation.

Outcast by friends and family

Also, keep in mind that a lot of them don't like to rock the boat of their personal lives. Saying you don't believe in god is a good way to distance yourself from your family and or spouse -- so many either lie, or, more likely, just avoid thinking down that path a lot because it has no positive benefit.

I strongly agree with your statement. Many of my classmates don't like to speak with me, or even "look down" on me for my un-Christian views. In addition, I've had multiple girls refuse to date me simply because I'm not Christian. Although one could argue that the girls are using that as an excuse to just not date me, I'm talking about the cases when I've become very close to the girl, and the next logical step would be to date.

Whatever the case may be, I certainly have heard people at least claim that they don't want to spend time/go out/talk with me because I'm not Christian. People think it's wrong to discriminate based on race, but when discrimination occurs based on religion (on a small scale, I'm not talking about the holocaust), it's suddenly justified because that's part of the religious doctrine?

I used to be Christian, and at my church, we were told as kids to only have close friends with people within the church. Having friends with anyone else would supposedly cause us to turn away from the "truth" and fall into temptation.

Re:Many "real" scientists are religious

The issue is that they believe something which is not indicated by empirical testing. So again, it seems to me that claiming to be a scientist when you believe something unprovable is, if not hypocritical, at least inconsistent.

As long as one recognizes that their religious beliefs are not supportable by empirical evidence (which is a no-brainer) and do not attempt to force those beliefs into their scientific work, there is no conflict.

You seem to think that the scientific process should consume those who use it. I couldn't disagree with you more. It is just a tool, not a religion in of itself. A tool, I might add, that was developed by the very "hypocrites" you decry.

Not at all.

Because when it gets down to the highly theoretical stuff like this that no one will ever truly be able to prove, its not much different than religion.

You would be right, if and only if Hawking was talking about things that couldn't ever be proven one way or another. At that point, he wouldn't be doing any sort of physics anymore, he'd be somewhere off in that grey area where it borders philosophy and religion. (I call this area "Wankersville", but that's just me.)

However, there's a difference between something that cannot ever be proved, full stop, and something that can't be proved or disproved right now, due to the limitations of our understanding and our equipment.

There was a time, as recently as a hundred years ago, when debates about whether light was a particle or a wave would have seemed like wanking. However, they were not -- because we now have an (well, at least a partial) answer to that question, it's just that the theoreticians exceeded the reach of the experimentalists for a few centuries. Debates such as those, which get answered eventually by experimental evidence, are wholly different from debates which can never be settled (and, IMO, are a pointless waste of time that humanity should just move the hell along from).

It's pretty clear that Hawking realizes that what he's postulating can't be proven or disproven right now, but he's not putting it out there as an article of faith, either; he's saying that at some point in the future, between now and the heat death of the Universe, we'll probably be able to test it experimentally. That's a lot different than religion.

Re:Try again.

No it doesn't. Reread his comment and try again. He says that we will "probably" be able to prove it. So it's not in the pile of things that definitely can't be proven, or in the pile that definitely can be proven. It's in the third pile - todo. The comparison was with religion which is squarely in the first pile.

Re:Try again.

Religious people never change their minds. Or rather, those that do are called heretics, and up until recently were frequently burned at the stake.

How very american statement...

What you're referring to is known as Fundamentalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Chris tianity [wikipedia.org]). While it is quite profilic opposition to scientific views in the USA, it is by no means the only way of thought for religious people.

Religion and Science aren't opposites, and don't nullify each other.

Re:Try again.

The Bible contains all sorts of statements that we now know to be false, in the sense that they contradict all available evidence. The religious respond by going into elaborate contortions to maintain their beliefs (see, for example, "God put the dinosaur fossils there to test us").

No, the religious nut-cases do that. They are the ones you always hear about in the media. You don't hear about the millions of reasonable, open-minded religious people who are capable of realizing that the Bible doesn't actually say how old the earth is and Genesis 1 was meant to be poetic rather than a scientific account of how God created the universe.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

Bah. You can't even prove to me that I exist. Philosophical empiricists, help me out here.

Hell no, you're on your own.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

He thinks, therefore he am.

And what the hell is a philosophical empiricist? How would one test a philosophical theory?

Philosopher: I think, therefore I am.
Empiricist clocks philosopher upside the head and knocks him out cold
Empiricist: Nope. Still there.

Since empirical and philosophical are mutually exclusive, one would think that if an philosophical empiricist existed, we would enter some kind of twilight zone where military intelligence would make sense...

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

To quote Don Hirschberg, "Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."

Then Asimov had some nice ideas:

        * I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.

        * If I am right, then (religious fundamentalists) will not go to Heaven, because there is no Heaven. If they are right, then they will not go to Heaven, because they are hypocrites.

        * There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.

Why is it, I wonder, that people who believe in God, and particularly Christians, insist that anyone who does not is still religious? Are they so insecure in their beliefs that they must force some kind of belief system onto other people - even if only in their own minds? Why is it they insist that asking, "where is the proof?" formulates a religious belief?

Pfft

That's not how it really happened... But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatarr said to them: 'Behold your Music!' And he showed them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; and they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void, and it was sustained therein, but was not of it.

I hope it's true...

It would add some credibility when I tell my girlfriend that the porn in my browser history came ex nihilo.

Re:I hope it's true...

... my girlfriend ...

Your credibility just went to zero :)

Re:I hope it's true...

Your credibility just went to zero :)

Please, his girlfriend obviously spontaneously appeared out of nothing.

God to Hawking:

In this house we obey the law of thermodynamics.

What Is Eternity?

What is eternity? You're on the checkout line at a supermarket. There are seven people in front of you. They are all old. They all have two carts and coupons for every item. They are all paying by check. None of them have ID. It's the checkout girl's first day on the job. She doesn't speak any English. Take away fifteen minutes from that, and you begin to get an idea of what eternity is.

Thank you, Emo Philips.

what the....

The article points to his overall speech to be filled with satire. It's hard to say what he was trying to get at, and is he serious? "The universe was built from nothing, but we can't prove it because that would take too long".

Is he joking or is he serious? I have a bolder conclusion:

"The universe was built from SOMETHING. Since time is seemingly infinite in both directions, I'll never be able to prove it, but I know I'm right".

The paradox of Faith

" I'll never be able to prove it, but I know I'm right".

There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda

It would seem you have backed yourself into a corner here.

so

universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing.
 
So how long till it pops out of existence?

Re:so

universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing.
So how long till it pops out of existence?
In about 2 secon

Not in TFA

I guess you have to watch the webcast because TFA doesn't say that. If anybody wants to summarize here that would be great.

IIRC from A Brief History of Time, Hawking theorized that time, a dimension, didn't exist 'before the universe' because it doesn't make sense to ask about time any more than the other three dimensions of spacetime before TFU existed. He had some maths explanation about how the time dimension approached 0 and curved back on itself (somebody more fresh elaborate...), and I think he got the Pope to concede time after time-0 to nature.

Maybe he's proposing a new theory here, reflected in the webcast?

Celebrity view

Maybe we could ask Paris Hilton, too.
Among celebrity experts she is most definitely the biggest authority on the science of creating something from nothing.

In the beginning....

...there was nothing. Then, God said, "Let there be light".

And there was still nothing, but at least you could see it.

hasn't been said yet

the universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing

This made a lot of people very angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad idea.--Douglas Adams

I guess the Hindus were right then

About the universe waking up from nothingness, and creating itself. This means we could have skipped 2,000 years of religious wars, standardized on Hinduism, made it Open Source and still had the New Age movement with its interesting drugs.

Re:Worthless link

"Do we have to listen to the webcast to get any of the good stuff?"

Why don't you listen to it and let us know.

Re:Where is the water these bubbles came from?

So it's a bunch of bullshit. Who cares? In a theocracy, Stephen Hawking would be hauled off to jail for suggesting such blasphemy. Shouldn't we be celebrating the fact that he can openly speculate about origins? Hawking isn't telling you how to live your life, or what to think, or who to vote for, or what to teach your kids, or which supreme court justices deserve to die. He's just sharing his little vision.

Re:Where is the water these bubbles came from?

He's making an analogy. A rigorous explanation is beyond the generalized audience he had there. Even those with proper background to understand it would probably have been bored -- they came there to see a scientist celebrity, and Hawkings did not disappoint.

For your enlightenment, the 'water' in question is a series of multidimensional branes [wikipedia.org], according to one cosmological theory. The universe may have been created when two branes collided, creating turbulence that manifested as a big bang in our dimensional space. These collisions go on all the time, but like the 'bubbles in boiling water' analogy not all the turbulence creates new universes.

Your next question is 'where did the branes come from'? Branes are mathematical concepts. If someone tells you 1+1=2, you can't really ask where '1' came from. If there is a multiverse it has to have some sort of brane structure, in much the same way as if humans exist they have to have skin.

So the universe was 'created by nothing' in a pretty accurate sense, as a mathematical concept is as close to 'nothing' as anyone is likely to conceive. But in the end, Hawkings' words were chosen for showmanship, not precision.

It's Always Turtles, and Maybe Elephants

Asimov [multivax.com] had something to say about this.

If, at any point it what can rationally be described as "time," any being or beings ever developed the capacity to create new universes, how many universes would said beings create?

What are the odds that no being would ever create universes?

If universes really do create themselves ex nihilo, what are the odds that we are the first beings in the first universe?

Proving "God," as in, some force that set the Universe in motion, is in some sense quite easy. It's God's attributes that are up for grabs. Is that force rational? Is that force "Good?" Perhaps most importantly, does that force have a beard?

This may be an inherent problem with our language, but when you're discussing "ultimate" causes you are always dealing with the turtles problem. This is because rational experience is inherently ordered (see Kant). There is no reason to insist, however, that something as big as the universe is within rational experience.

The ancient Greeks talked about the universe as infinite in this way: throw a dart. If the dart hits something, then there is "something" there, so that's not the edge of the universe. If the dart keeps going then there is space there so that's not the edge of the universe, either. Those are the only rational options, so the universe must be infinite.

New models of physics suggest that the dart might come back at you or turn up "somewhere else." As our capacity to discuss events grows, what constitutes "rational" also grows. As that grows, the line of turtles grows ever longer. The choices seem to be that the stack ends at "nothing," that the stack never ends at all, or that the stack loops back on itself...

If there are other options we haven't figured them out yet. As it turns out, we aren't making great sense out of the options we have.

Re:preemptive question

What on earth? Sorry, Lord Ender, but you not only don't quite understand what theists claim, you don't even accurately list the other possibilities. You left out the other two major possibilities, and your #2 isn't claimed by anyone I've ever read.

1. The universe popped into existence from nothing, or
2. A complex, intelligent, powerful creature (presumably with a beard) popped into existence from nothing, then one day decided to create the universe from nothing, or
3. The universe has always existed, or
4. God has always existed, and created the universe from nothing.

Now, maybe you left out 3 because you're assuming the Big Bang. If so, that's fair enough.

But the claim of every major theistic group I know is #4, not #2. You seem to be aping Dawkins' arguments, with a similar ignorance of the actual set of alternatives. No one claims that the order/complexity/whatever of God just popped into existence. People (Hawking, Dawkins, apparently you) do claim that the order of the physical universe & natural law just popped into existence. If you're going to compare your views to other people's, and if you care about honesty and intellectual integrity, please accurately represent them.

And if you think the distinction I'm making between 2 and 4 is irrelevant or meaningless, keep this in mind: The Big Bang was resisted because people wanted to have a universe that always existed. They could accept an eternal universe; they did not want to have to explain a universe that started to exist. (Of course, we can also suppose an eternal chain of Big Bangs, universes spawning other universes, etc., so the Big Bang doesn't actually settle this question of eternality.) So, those philosophical naturalists thought 3 was more reasonable than 1 for precisely the reason that theists claim 4 is more reasonable than 2.

Re:preemptive question

I know #2 has some evidence

Cite some.