Is Nothingness the Cause of the Big Bang?

[Holocene]

I know this isn't really a scientific statement, but I have read that one reason the big-bang may have originated from a state of complete nothingness, is because nothingness is terribly "unstable".

Any grain of possible truth to this?

 

[Theinvoker]

I know this isn't really a scientific statement, but I have read that one reason the big-bang may have originated from a state of complete nothingness, is because nothingness is terribly "unstable".

Any grain of possible truth to this?

Yes, well sort of. It depends on your definition of nothing. I think the theory you are talking about refers to nothingness as no physical matter, however refers to the theoretical ability for energy to be converted to matter in an pre or early universe environment on the quantum and possibly sub quantum level.

Everything tend to get rather funky when you get that small, things that are there aren't really there, there's just a chance they will be there at a specific point in time. Its all a bit mid boggling really, quantum mech is random enough, let alone in a pre-universe environment where a lot of people theorize that the current laws of physics would be different to now!

 

[sysreset]

It is interesting that in our ever expanding universe, we can find no place that contains "nothingness". Even in the most distant intergalactic regions there is still something like one hydrogen atom per cubic meter and a constant barrage of photons (radiation) passing through. I'm not sure about the WMAP cold spot, though.

 

[mathman]

The origin of the big bang, in contrast to what happened after, is very much an open question. Starting from nothing? Cyclic universe? Brane collision?