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Nothing comes from nothing ( gr, οὐδὲν ἐξ οὐδενός; la, ex nihilo nihil fit) is a philosophical
dictum In general usage, a dictum ( in Latin; plural dicta) is an authoritative or dogmatic statement. In some contexts, such as legal writing and church cantata librettos, ''dictum'' can have a specific meaning. Legal writing In United States legal ter ...
first argued by
Parmenides Parmenides of Elea (; grc-gre, Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης; ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia. Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Elea, from a wealthy and illustrious family. His date ...
. It is associated with
ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...
, such as is presented not just in the works of
Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
and
Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...
, but also in virtually every internal system: there is no break in-between a world that did not exist and one that did, since it could not be created in the first place.


Parmenides

The idea that "nothing comes from nothing", as articulated by
Parmenides Parmenides of Elea (; grc-gre, Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης; ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia. Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Elea, from a wealthy and illustrious family. His date ...
, first appears in
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
's ''
Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...
'': The above, in a translation based on the John Burnet translation, appears as follows:


Lucretius

The Roman poet and philosopher
Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ;  – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
expressed this principle in his first book of (''On the Nature of Things'') He then continues on discussing how matter is required to make matter and that objects cannot spring forth without reasonable cause.


Early modern literature

In Shakespeare's play ''
King Lear ''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane a ...
'' Act 1 Scene 1, the title character says to his daughter Cordelia, "Nothing can come of nothing".


Modern physics

The law of
conservation of energy In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be ''conserved'' over time. This law, first proposed and tested by Émilie du Châtelet, means tha ...
states that the total energy of an
isolated system In physical science, an isolated system is either of the following: # a physical system so far removed from other systems that it does not interact with them. # a thermodynamic system enclosed by rigid immovable walls through which neither ...
cannot change. The
zero-energy universe The zero-energy universe hypothesis proposes that the total amount of energy in the universe is exactly zero: its amount of positive energy in the form of matter is exactly canceled out by its negative energy in the form of gravity. Some physicist ...
hypothesis states that the amount of energy in the universe minus the amount of
gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...
is exactly zero. In this kind of universe, matter could be created from nothing through a vacuum fluctuation, assuming such a zero-energy universe already ''is'' nothing. Such a universe would need to be flat, a state which does not contradict current observations that the universe is flat with a 0.5%
margin of error The margin of error is a statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in the results of a survey. The larger the margin of error, the less confidence one should have that a poll result would reflect the result of a census of the e ...
. Some physicists—such as
Lawrence Krauss Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who previously taught at Arizona State University, Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project, now c ...
, Stephen Hawking, and
Michio Kaku Michio Kaku (, ; born January 24, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist, futurist, and popularizer of science ( science communicator). He is a professor of theoretical physics in the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center. Kak ...
—define or defined 'nothing' as an unstable
quantum vacuum In quantum field theory, the quantum vacuum state (also called the quantum vacuum or vacuum state) is the quantum state with the lowest possible energy. Generally, it contains no physical particles. The word zero-point field is sometimes used as ...
that contains no particles. Philosopher David Albert has criticised Krauss for this, pointing out that because his definition of 'nothing' presupposes the existence of quantum fields obeying particular laws of physics, he has "nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story". In response, Krauss replied that he doesn't "give a damn about what "nothing" means to philosophers; I care about the "nothing" of reality", calling Albert "a moronic philosopher". Quantum mechanics proposes that pairs of
virtual particle A virtual particle is a theoretical transient particle that exhibits some of the characteristics of an ordinary particle, while having its existence limited by the uncertainty principle. The concept of virtual particles arises in the perturba ...
s are being created from quantum fluctuations in this "empty" space all the time. If these pairs do not mutually annihilate right away, they could be detected as real particles, for example if one falls into a black hole and its opposite is emitted as
Hawking radiation Hawking radiation is theoretical black body radiation that is theorized to be released outside a black hole's event horizon because of relativistic quantum effects. It is named after the physicist Stephen Hawking, who developed a theoretical a ...
.
Alexander Vilenkin Alexander Vilenkin (russian: Алекса́ндр Виле́нкин; uk, Олександр Віленкін; born 13 May 1949) is the Leonard Jane Holmes Bernstein Professor of Evolutionary Science and Director of the Institute of Cosmology a ...
defines "nothing" as a universe of zero size: It is the closest to nothing one can get, but still not nothing.


See also


References

{{Reflist


Further reading

* Lucretius. (2007). ''The Nature of Things''. Trans. A. E. Stallings. New York: Penguin Classics.


External links


Lucretius' ''De Rerum Natura'', translated by William Ellery at the Internet Classics Archive
Philosophical arguments Philosophy of physics Physical cosmology Parmenides