How do atoms appear in a vacuum?

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How do atoms appear in a vacuum?
Topic Started: 21 Jul 2012, 02:44 PM (512 Views)
Toxification	21 Jul 2012, 02:44 PM Post #1
Posts: 207 Group: Members Member #2,747 Joined: 15-May 2012	I've read and heard from several sources, including Steven Hawking's Does God exist? that atoms can appear in a vacuum, yet never heard an explanation for how. I'm not challenging anyone here, I'm just looking for an answer so I can use it as yet another argument against the cosmological argument



BadHouses	22 Jul 2012, 09:33 PM Post #2
Posts: 757 Group: Lalalandian Member #1,231 Joined: 13-Sep 2011	You should probably google whatever particle it was Stephen Hawking was on about.
	We'll have a real wild time.


Yar	23 Jul 2012, 02:42 AM Post #3
Posts: 0 Group: Members Member #2,072 Joined: 15-Nov 2011	Sounds like the strings theory to me, although I doubt that I fully understand it, so my retort might be just as ignorant as trying to apply the theory of relativity to human relations.



LuCay	23 Jul 2012, 07:38 AM Post #4
Posts: 140 Group: Members Member #1,371 Joined: 20-Sep 2011	Are you sure it was atoms, or particles? I've read about virtual particles 'popping into and out of existence' in the vacuum. Thing is, the vacuum of the physicists seems a bit different to the vacuum that people normally think about. There is still energy in a vacuum (don't ask me how), so it isn't actually 'nothing'. It's not necessarily that the particles appear 'from nothing', it's that they are somehow converted into particles from the energy in the field, but the total net energy remains the same; it's just that now some of that energy is in a different form (momentarily anyway, though these virtual particles are though to appear and disappear all the time, too quickly to be directly detected). The process by which they arise from the vacuum energy is called 'symmetry breaking', wherein an unstable state changes to a more stable configuration, though in this case the particles pop back out of existence almost as quickly as they came. Or some mind-fuck like that. There's a book called 'Symmetry and the beautiful universe' that goes into some of this stuff, though I haven't read it so I can't say how convincingly it does so.



Yar	23 Jul 2012, 12:48 PM Post #5
Posts: 0 Group: Members Member #2,072 Joined: 15-Nov 2011	LuCay 23 Jul 2012, 07:38 AM There is still energy in a vacuum (don't ask me how) It's because of the uncertainty principle: in accordance with it, the physical vacuum constantly creates and annihilates a number of virtual particles: the so-called zero-point fluctuations of the fields. Also, it is just physically impossible for any vacuum pump to extract all the particles, since once the size of a particle is greatly lesser then the volume it is locked in, only either it's speed or it's vector's direction can be traced, not both at once.



LuCay	23 Jul 2012, 02:17 PM Post #6
Posts: 140 Group: Members Member #1,371 Joined: 20-Sep 2011	Yar 23 Jul 2012, 12:48 PM LuCay 23 Jul 2012, 07:38 AM There is still energy in a vacuum (don't ask me how) It's because of the uncertainty principle: in accordance with it, the physical vacuum constantly creates and annihilates a number of virtual particles: the so-called zero-point fluctuations of the fields. Also, it is just physically impossible for any vacuum pump to extract all the particles, since once the size of a particle is greatly lesser then the volume it is locked in, only either it's speed or it's vector's direction can be traced, not both at once. That made no sense to me. Someday I'll sort through this quantum mechanics business.



Yar	23 Jul 2012, 03:05 PM Post #7
Posts: 0 Group: Members Member #2,072 Joined: 15-Nov 2011	Neither it does to me: I have very little understanding of quantum physics, so I'm pretty much just re-translating what I've memorized but can't quite picture in my head.



Ardat	24 Jul 2012, 12:19 PM Post #8
Posts: 2,093 Group: Elite Members Member #491 Joined: 26-Jul 2011	Not atoms, particles. Well, the process is a result of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, stating, in its best known version, that the less indeterminacy you have vis à vis the position of a quantum system, the more its momentum will be undetermined. Now, you have to understand that this indeterminacy is a fundamental property, not merely a lack of precision on the part of the observer. A vacuum isn't empty stuff, it has a specific energy density that could take the form of a photon, except it's not intense enough locally for it to happen. But, just as momentum and position are linked through the Heisenberg principle, time and energy act in similar fashion in that regard (though, not for the same mathematical reasons). So, what you can observe is very short-lived photons, said to be virtual, having an energy that's in the range of what is allowed by the uncertainty principle. It's the limited life-span that makes the energy range significant enough for a photon to be created in a vacuum, which is then divided into a particle and its anti-particle, only to have them meeting moments later and be annihilated, which gives back the energy in its original form. Something along those lines. Edited by Ardat, 24 Jul 2012, 04:37 PM.
	What's more fun than fighting crime?


Yar	24 Jul 2012, 01:55 PM Post #9
Posts: 0 Group: Members Member #2,072 Joined: 15-Nov 2011	LuCay 23 Jul 2012, 07:38 AM There's a book called 'Symmetry and the beautiful universe' The name reminds me of "The Miracle of the Snowflake" from Clockwork Orange. 'Now,' said Georgie, 'here is what I should call real dirt. There's one slovo beginning with an F and another with a C.' He had a book called The Miracle of the Snowflake. 'Oh,' said poor old Dim, smotting over Pete's shoulder and going too far, like he always did, 'it says here what he done to her, and there's a picture and all. Why,' he said, 'you're nothing but a filthy-minded old skitebird.'



Toxification	28 Jul 2012, 04:20 PM Post #10
Posts: 207 Group: Members Member #2,747 Joined: 15-May 2012	So, what created this energy?



Ardat	28 Jul 2012, 04:24 PM Post #11
Posts: 2,093 Group: Elite Members Member #491 Joined: 26-Jul 2011	The vacuum has an energy density; nothing in our universe is ever truly empty. Why? I don't know, and I don't think anyone does at this point in time.
	What's more fun than fighting crime?


Toxification	28 Jul 2012, 04:34 PM Post #12
Posts: 207 Group: Members Member #2,747 Joined: 15-May 2012	Do you think this may have been so before the creation of the universe? And if so how would the big bang have taken place?



Ardat	28 Jul 2012, 05:17 PM Post #13
Posts: 2,093 Group: Elite Members Member #491 Joined: 26-Jul 2011	It's rather unclear whether there actually was a creation at all. And if there was, the Big Bang certainly wasn't it as it's nowadays described to have been a very dense era of our universe and, so far, all attempts to go beyond Planck's wall have shown that there was something prior to the wrongly called beginning of time and space (as far as I know, this stuff are branes, but I'm hardly a string theory specialist). Edited by Ardat, 28 Jul 2012, 05:19 PM.
	What's more fun than fighting crime?


Toxification	28 Jul 2012, 05:30 PM Post #14
Posts: 207 Group: Members Member #2,747 Joined: 15-May 2012	How could the beginning be a dense era of the universe? Something had to create that density, or else the universe wouldn't have a beginning as you suggested.



Ardat	28 Jul 2012, 05:37 PM Post #15
Posts: 2,093 Group: Elite Members Member #491 Joined: 26-Jul 2011	Didn't I say it was wrongly called the beginning?
	What's more fun than fighting crime?


Toxification	29 Jul 2012, 04:44 AM Post #16
Posts: 207 Group: Members Member #2,747 Joined: 15-May 2012	Oh, I understand now, missed out a few words.



trickyricky	15 Aug 2012, 03:09 PM Post #17
Posts: 136 Group: Members Member #2,700 Joined: 30-Apr 2012	http://www.cracked.com/article_19978_5-mind-blowing-ways-that-science-has-done-impossible.html



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