Everyone fancies themselves as a bit of a rule-breaker from time-to-time. Staying up late and drinking when you know you have a meeting with the boss in the morning, talking on the phone in the quiet part of the library – sometimes you’ve just gotta embrace your inner punk rocker. But it turns out that the universe might just be the biggest rulebreaker of all. And what’s more? We’re all living in the aftermath of its rebellion. So what exactly did it do that caused so much mischief?
It exists.
That’s right, the incredible, mind-boggling, expanding and potentially infinite cosmic marvel that is the universe has scientists the world over scratching their heads. A recent study has revealed that the universe shouldn’t even exist, and by extension, nor should any of us. Now that kind of rulebreaking makes your teenage shenanigans look downright tame in comparison.
But how exactly is that the case? Let’s dive in.
The Paradox Problem
Essentially, it all boils down to a pesky paradox (don’t you just hate those?). This one involves the Higgs field, an invisible energy field that gives particles their mass. Without it, there would be no particles, no atoms, and no…well, anything.
But scientists have uncovered a troubling fact: this field isn’t as stable as we once thought. They now believe it typically ‘bubbles’, creating pockets of altered reality. In these spaces, the rules of the universe collapse and nothing exists.
(Note: In physics, “nothing” means a breakdown of our universe’s laws – where matter, forces, and spacetime dissolve. This creates chaos, not an absolute void. That itself would be another paradox, as nothing can’t ‘exist’).
It’s these specific instabilities that form the crux of the paradox. If the Higgs field is constantly prone to such catastrophic breakdowns, how is it possible that the universe ever stabilized long enough for matter to form after the Big Bang? Theoretical models suggest these bubbles of instability should have emerged almost immediately, collapsing everything before particles, atoms, or galaxies could even exist. Yet, against all odds, here we are. 13.7 billion years later, doing our thing, and defying what the very laws of physics seem to predict.
False Vacuums
The study that revealed this oddity was led by researcher Lucien Heurtier. The team explained that the Higgs field “isn’t likely to be in the lowest possible energy state it could be in. That means it could theoretically change its state, dropping to a lower energy state in a certain location.”
This phenomenon is known as a false vacuum, and has nothing to do pretending to clean the carpets. It’s a semi-stable, but not ultimate state, (often visualized as a rolling ball settling in a mini dip instead of the lowest point of a hill). A shift to a true vacuum (i.e., the ball freeing itself and going to the bottom of that hill) would trigger a chain reaction. It would create bubbles of altered physics that spread, disintegrating matter and rewriting the universe itself.
This more-than-a little-bit precarious stability raises profound questions. Ones like ‘How did the universe manage to dodge a collapse – and could such an event still be on the cards in the future?’ If this were to occur at some point, the consequences would be catastrophic. The fundamental laws of physics would rewrite themselves in whatever way they felt like. Electrons would lose their mass, atoms would collapse, and the very foundation of matter would crumble. In short, existence would vanish without a trace.
But on the plus side, you wouldn’t have to pay tax.
We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know
This mind-blowing revelation about creation itself highlights just how little we truly understand about the universe. The fact that it didn’t collapse when it should have raises the possibility that reality is perhaps more conscious, or at least more complex, than we currently give it credit for. But this shouldn’t really come as a surprise, or a concern. Science is constantly evolving, with new research arriving to challenge outdated beliefs and establish new understandings. These findings help push us forward as a species.
This is why unbiased scientific research, such as DeSci, is so important. It allows researchers to focus on incredible discoveries, rather than pushing corporate agendas.
So let’s keep breaking rules, one scientific discovery at a time.
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