Recent content by TomVassos

Dale, I see what you are saying. Thanks so much for taking all that time to explain everything. I took a closer look at the research about when vacuum decay is likely to occur, and Andraesson et al. state that it will occur between 10^88 and 10^291 years with a 68% confidence level, and between...

Hi Dale, let's take your example about the likelihood of a particular part failing. If I install the part on January 1, looking at the bell curve, can I not determine the likelihood that the part will fail sometime between January 1 and January 15th for example? If the part is installed on...

Even if you disagree with the assumption that time zero started at the Big Bang, can we still make this calculation?

Hi Dale, not sure why you say that. Picture a Bell curve where the far left side of the curve begins at time zero, when the Big Bang occurs. And it ends at the far right side, somewhere in the range of 10^607 years (549 + 58). The area of the Bell curve prior to 10^58 years should be the same as...

Yes, I was asked to remove any reference to any paradoxes, etc., which I have done so now I have just posed it as a straight math/statistics question. Hoping someone on PhysicsForums has the smarts to solve this math dilemma for me... :) Tom, Canada

Hi Dale, thanks for your questions. To give you a bit of background information, this is the likelihood of something called "vacuum decay" occurring. (It is when a Higgs Boson decays from a false vacuum to a true vacuum state, causing something called a bubble nucleation which will begin to...

But by knowing with 95% confidence when this event is likely to occur, doesn't that tell us the exact shape of the Bell curve that describes its probability? Can't that be used to determine the probability of that tiny little slice at the far left side of the Bell curve? Tom

Let’s say that we know, with 95% confidence, that something is likely to occur when the Universe is between 1058 and 10549 years old. What is the statistical likelihood that it has already occurred in the first 13.8 billion years of the Universe’s existence? (1.38 X 1010 years) I know the...

Lol, that's true... but just remember all of those thought experiments that Einstein did... lol.

Yes hat's true, we will never be able to observe it coming. But, if science is ever able to prove that the Universe is infinite in size, then it would be cool to know that all of these vacuum bubble nucleations are happening all over the Universe... :) Tom

Well, I like to think that it is a statement about how huge the universe might be. Think about it. In an infinite universe, vacuum decay has already occurred an infinite number of times, each bubble nucleation destroying the Universe at light-speed. But there is almost zero chance of Earth...

Yes, because regardless of how small this number is, in an infinite universe, vacuum decay has already happened an infinite number of times!!!

One possible end to the Universe is called vacuum decay, where a Higgs boson could transition from a false vacuum to a true vacuum state. This would create a vacuum decay bubble (known as bubble nucleation) that would expand at light speed, destroying everything in its path. According to Anders...