Somewhere I heard that matter was made from nothingness?

Question

They gave a long drawn out explanation,saying it seems impossible but it is true,energy/matter came from nothingness.I don't see how, but if true it would certainly explain a lot.Answers please?

Answer 1

In the words of Einstein, matter is simply a different manifestation of energy.


As for energy, from everything we know about thermodynamics, it cannot be created or destroyed. Energy didn't come from anywhere and can't go anywhere. It simply IS.

Why? Well, we're not sure yet.

Answer 2

You're asking about either (1) the Big Bang, which was the beginning of our universe, or (2) a phenomenon that goes on all the time in empty space.

(1) The Big Bang was an event that happened some 13.7-billion years ago before there was any space, energy or matter. By some unknown means, our universe suddenly began. At first there was nothing but space and energy. Over time matter began forming out of the energy, then the first stars were formed, and eventually galaxies. What, if any "thing," existed before the Big Bang event is totally unknown.

(2) Down at the tiniest imaginable sizes of empty space there is a strange form of energy known as zero-point energy or vacuum energy. Science has proven that this energy does exist, and from it subatomic particles are created, seemingly out of nothing. These particles come in pairs, each the anti-particle of the other so that they almost instantaneously self-destruct.

Answer 3

Matter and energy are two forms of the same thing (hence Einstein's famous, and often misunderstood, formula E=mc^2). Much of an atom is empty space, which means much of matter is empty space, but it isn't all empty space.

What gives mass is believed to be something called the Higgs boson, something never found, but experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland/France are set to being in the next couple of years to find it.

Matter does come from nothingness, it is a requirement of quantum physics. Particles and antiparticles routinely spring up from the "quantum foam" which is at the smallest level of space itself. They quickly annihilate each other.

During the Big Bang, everything came from some sort of singularity. I'm speculating from my own beliefs about it, but I'd say that it is very likely that this is what happened at the Big Bang (or very shortly thereafter) on a very large scale. Why there is more matter than anti-matter, though, is truly unknown.

Answer 4

Actually, you may have heard correctly, The matter we know was made when "nothing" exploded into matter and antimatter, using the mathematics that

0 = -1 plus +1

we are the +1 of the equation (or the -1, it's all relative).

Scientists have found some of the antimatter, namely the electron anti-particle, called the positron.

It's the cause of the explosion, ie the Big Bang, which is as yet conjectural.

Was it God?
Was it two other universes interacting at the super-string level of existence?
Was it the result of the Big Crunch, where our universe continually collapses in on itself and explodes again - ad infinitum?


Who knows?
.

Answer 5

Big bang theory extrapolations, called Cosmogony

The Big Bang theory itself basically states that the entire universe itself originates from a very hot and dense origin, but the very early time of that are beyond what we can observe, and hence even if people develop theories about it, there is no way to proof nor to disproof the theory.

The big Bang theory has a rather wide acceptance and some (indirect) proof.

The stuff happening before that are more religion than proven and widely accepted science at this point.

Answer 6

Creatio ex nihilo - creation from nothing.

Yes - many physists like to believe that on a sub-atomic level, there are particles that phase in and out of existence. I personally think they are crazy.

Some like to think that matter and antimatter, and energy and anti-energy exist in perfect proportion to each other, meaning that the sum of the universe is nothing - and thus, perhaps the universe sprang from nothing. Again, I think this is more the result of overly fanciful physists who studied Daoism than a real likelihood.

See:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/vacuum.html


Personally, I believe strongly in:
"Nihil ex nihilo fit" ~= Nothing comes of nothing.
And this is a law that holds very true on at least a macro-scale. I.e., there is always conservation of energy and matter.

Answer 7

not neccesarily nothng but from elements hitting eachother at high speeds and generating great heat our galaxy and all others were made from a sort of "big bang" which still has radiation out in space. turn on your tv to a black and white screen and that fuzzy sound there n on the radio.....is radiation from the big bang millions of years a go. we started out from a small spec and will end the same way once everything condenses back down in the very distant future.

Answer 8

Matter is basically condensed energy - so matter pretty much comes from energy. Where energy comes from? I'm not sure if anyone can really explain that yet.

Answer 9

The reason it explains a lot of questions is because it is true.

Answer 10

the guys who told you that might be mad.Matter is anything which has pressure and takes up space.