I Vacuum decay likelihood and consequences

KleinMoretti
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what is the likelihood of a vacuum decay ever happening and what would be the consequences.
what is the likelihood of a vacuum decay happening, like is it something that is really considered and taken seriously by scientists or is it just wild speculation that is not really taken seriously but makes for good headlines?

Also if vacuum decay does happen what exactly would be the consequences, like I have read that the most extreme case is the destruction of the universe but what exactly does that mean, is everything in the universe actually destroyed including the energy of the universe?
 
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I'd vote it "wild speculation" at best. But it makes great click-bait so you'll see it often on pop science websites and news feeds.

Now if you want to worry about something more pressing, Andromeda will collide with the Milky Way and probably the central black holes will merge. I afraid that the resulting radiation as the merged galaxy becomes a quasar will wipe out all life. Even if we have interstellar travel by then there's nowhere in the galaxy to hide. 😅
 
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. Towards the end of the first lecture for the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Olivia Lanes (Global Lead, Content and Education IBM) stated... Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/quantum-entanglement-is-a-kinematic-fact-not-a-dynamical-effect/ by @RUTA
If we release an electron around a positively charged sphere, the initial state of electron is a linear combination of Hydrogen-like states. According to quantum mechanics, evolution of time would not change this initial state because the potential is time independent. However, classically we expect the electron to collide with the sphere. So, it seems that the quantum and classics predict different behaviours!
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