Something from nothing

[mostlyharmless]

Is this possible .

As I look at the continuing escalation of gambling. which of course the national lottery made more acceptable, do we really believe we can get something from nothing?

The point may be that theres now an awful lot of nothing to pay to those that create the possibility.

However when I see half someones pension going on lottery scratch cards
I begin to wonder if the fall in a person's faith in a god has been transferred to another type of hope.

In true 1984 style is our wonderful government keeping us proles under the thumb and happy, by diverting our attention from reality to the blindy absurd possibilities that we no longer want to wait and work for.

Or is it just a game that inspires our hopes and gives us the possibility to become more than we are?

Some may say its up to the individual and its just a laugh and its true it is up to the individual but usually effects others.
And is it a choice? like smoking the more you do it the more it becomes a need, then it becomes a way of life, ...indeed what am I MAKING A FUSS ABOUT?

[sjwahwah]

let me guess... you've smoked your last fag and you spent your last fiver on losing lottery tickets?:roll:

[mostlyharmless]

Good guess...but the wrong answer

Maybe I'll just auction a bag of Caithness air to the highest bidder and see if I can make it all the way to a paper clip and we all know where that can take us!

Yes sounds like something for nothing ..well almost a bit of oxygen and nitrogen, but hey its better than a tenner a week.


No this is not gambling of course merely being an entrepreneur.

So whose my first bidder ? On a journey of something for nothing !
[All money of course will be donated to those addicted to this kind of thing]

[Rheghead]

WHERE do the laws of physics come from? It is one of the most fundamental questions in science. Most physicists say that nature's laws have an objective existence - independent of human beings - According to Victor Stenger of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the laws that orchestrate the universe are human inventions.
Stenger is not trying to belittle the laws of physics. He is as convinced as the next physicist that they are an immensely powerful means of encapsulating a vast range of natural phenomena in terms of simple relationships. Stenger, however, draws the reader's attention to the bedrock on which those laws are founded: symmetry.
Symmetry concerns itself with the aspects of an object that remain unchanged when something is done to it. A starfish, for instance, looks the same when rotated through a fifth of a complete turn about its centre, so it is said to have 72-degree rotational symmetry. In 1918, the German mathematician Emmy Noether made the surprising and remarkable discovery that many of the dynamical laws of physics are nothing more than consequences of underlying symmetries. For instance, the law of conservation of energy, which says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, turns out to be a direct consequence of time-translation symmetry - the fact that, all things being equal, you will get the same result if you carry out an experiment tomorrow as you did today.
Noether, who really ought to be a household name, had found what might be the single most powerful idea in science. For it turns out that symmetry is a guiding light that can lead us to new laws of physics. For instance, symmetries that Noether herself never dreamed of - those not of real space and time but of abstract mathematical spaces - are responsible for the laws of quantum theory, the most wide-ranging and fruitful natural edicts ever known.
So if the laws of physics are based on symmetries, what does that really tell us? According to Stenger, it tells us that the laws are nothing more than a means of correlating phenomena so that they appear "independent of viewpoint". There is nothing to stop us from writing down laws that are dependent on our viewpoint - that are different in New York and London or from yesterday to today - but they would be far more complicated and difficult to use.
The laws of physics are simply human inventions motivated by our desire for a viewpoint-independent picture of the universe, Stenger argues. And that's just the beginning. Next he reveals the remarkable fact that the symmetries that lead to the laws of physics are exactly the same as those that would apply if the universe were completely empty. They are the symmetries of the void.
All of this leads Stenger to the biggest cosmic question of all: how did something come from nothing? The answer is simple, he says. Since the laws of physics are the laws of nothing, we require only nothing to come from nothing, which is hardly a difficult step!
The universe may share the same laws as nothing, but it is categorically not a void. It has matter, energy and a vast amount of structure. Where did it all come from? Here comes Stenger's most contentious claim. Something came from nothing, he says, because something is more stable than nothing. In the beginning, there was the void, governed by the laws of the void, but the void changed into something more structured - rearranged nothing, if you like - just like featureless water changing into crystalline ice because at low temperatures ice is more stable than water.
“Something came from nothing because it is more stable than nothing”
.................................................. ...........................................

from an article in the newscientist.:confused

[mostlyharmless]

Excellent...thanks for that I read something similar recently that briefly suggested that all physical laws are there already waiting for us to perceive them. In other words perception of a thing is nine tenths of it becoming a reality! There is so much nothing out there waiting for us to find it ...

[Ann]

I enjoyed that Rheghead, thanks! Now I know why I enjoyed physics at school; was amazed in fact!

Has anyone got the equation that proves you can take your trousers off over your head and no, I don't mean by wearing them on your head in the first place! ;)

[Ann]

Is this possible .

As I look at the continuing escalation of gambling. which of course the national lottery made more acceptable, do we really believe we can get something from nothing?

The point may be that theres now an awful lot of nothing to pay to those that create the possibility.

However when I see half someones pension going on lottery scratch cards
I begin to wonder if the fall in a person's faith in a god has been transferred to another type of hope.

In true 1984 style is our wonderful government keeping us proles under the thumb and happy, by diverting our attention from reality to the blindy absurd possibilities that we no longer want to wait and work for.

Or is it just a game that inspires our hopes and gives us the possibility to become more than we are?

Some may say its up to the individual and its just a laugh and its true it is up to the individual but usually effects others.
And is it a choice? like smoking the more you do it the more it becomes a need, then it becomes a way of life, ...indeed what am I MAKING A FUSS ABOUT?

Like all "addictions" it is a trap that makes us believe that we "need" our fags, alcohol, gambling etc. For some reason or other we humans need to have something to make us happy or what we perceive as happy.

Unfortunately, there will always be people around to make money or attain power by providing the said addictions. And, as you say, it diverts us from seeing what is actually happening all around us so allows "the powerful" ones to retain same.

[mostlyharmless]

It does make sense to a degree... for if you DO trace it back far enough, you literally have nothing, where did matter originate from?
where could we possibly get enough energy to form the big bang, or the spark, or the what-ever??? the universe's own destruction? I think we need to accept the possibility in a cyclic universe... the fact that its own destruction spawned its beginning, the act itself never needs to actually take place, it needs only the opportunity!
But then where did matter come from?? it didn't... there's alot of ignored evidence, that matter is merely energy, it would explain quantum, why it all just dissapaits into nothing, its origin, a strange vibration of energy... maybe... it's worth considering.

[DrSzin]

... from an article in the newscientist.I read that article by Marcus Chown (http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Nothing/NewSciRev.pdf) in New Scientist a few weeks ago. My comment at the time was that it tells us more about Marcus Chown's (lack of) understanding of the subject than about anything else.

But I was curious, so I went and read a few sample chapters of Victor Stenger's book (http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/nothing.html). (The sample chapters are near the bottom of the page.) It's nearly-all pretty non-contentious stuff but the presentation and Victor Stenger's understanding of it are pretty pedestrian. It's basically a popular science book which is slanted towards the role of symmetries in physics. IMHO it's slanted too far in that direction to be good for anyone who wants to understand the subject from scratch. There are lots of "mathematical supplements" but his explanations and derivations are fairly pedestrian - there's little or nothing new and it ain't high-fallutin' stuff - what I read was little more than "thin" undergraduate theoretical physics. In fact, I cringed at his naivety and lack of detailed understanding on many occasions.

As for "his" "something is more stable than nothing" hypothesis... Well, this sure ain't his idea or observation (it's ancient!), and even if it was his idea I suspect he ain't talented enough to do anything substantial with it.

Is there a smiley for "this book is kinda ok but but I'm not exactly overly impressed"?

My conclusion: this book fills a much-needed gap in the literature and is well-worth a miss. :cool:

Ok, so much for his bog-standard stuff...

Go look at his homepage (http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/)and read about his newest book (http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/godless.html). Now, that's a bit more like the description on the tin - there's plenty of contentious stuff in there!

I skipped through a couple of its sample chapters but that's all - I was utterly fed up of him by the time I found them lol.

[scorrie]

Is this possible .

As I look at the continuing escalation of gambling. which of course the national lottery made more acceptable, do we really believe we can get something from nothing?

The point may be that theres now an awful lot of nothing to pay to those that create the possibility.

However when I see half someones pension going on lottery scratch cards
I begin to wonder if the fall in a person's faith in a god has been transferred to another type of hope.

In true 1984 style is our wonderful government keeping us proles under the thumb and happy, by diverting our attention from reality to the blindy absurd possibilities that we no longer want to wait and work for.

Or is it just a game that inspires our hopes and gives us the possibility to become more than we are?

Some may say its up to the individual and its just a laugh and its true it is up to the individual but usually effects others.
And is it a choice? like smoking the more you do it the more it becomes a need, then it becomes a way of life, ...indeed what am I MAKING A FUSS ABOUT?


I'll try to answer your question without wandering off at a tangent into New Scientist territory. By the way, is the New Scientist the "Hello" magazine of the academic world?

Back to gambling, which many of us probably will be at some stage today. Betting offices were legalised in 1961 but before that it was possible to place bets illegally via bookies runners. TV coverage before 1961 was forbidden from relaying the odds of the runners to the viewers, as this was thought to encourage illegal betting. However the presenters used to adopt a code that alluded to the status and price of the runners in the race and there would be long, delicious periods of silence from the commentators whilst the on-course announcer blasted the odds out to the crowd via a rather loud Tannoy system.

The betting offices of my youth were rather spit and sawdust type affairs populated solely by the male species. They were mysterious, behind closed doors sanctuaries where men would retreat to knowing that the "wife" would never dare to cross the threshold. Ironically though, it was easy enough for an under-age punter to place a bet. My auntie often sent me to the gambler's den with instructions to get a "mannie" to put the bet on for me. I can never recall being refused and I was not the only schoolboy punter hanging around the door in Louisborough Street waiting for our Proxy Server to appear.

Fast forward to the 1990's and the government decide to move on from Victorian Times and allow people to bet after 6.30 PM and on the Sabbath Day to boot. The National Lottery and its scratchcards sanitise gambling and allow women to embrace the evil deed. New rules allow the public to see into the bookies shops for the first time to learn that they are filled with modern facilities and computer screens rather than spitoons and brawling drunks, although the later can still be seen occasionally. Women discover that they can enter the premises to be served by members of their own sex and leave without being accosted, an all round painless experience and as normal in today's society as seeing unmarried girls pushing prams containing their own offspring without a Minister chasing after them waving the good book (The Da Vinci Code)

Here we are today in a position where we can bet without leaving the comfort of our own keyboard. Nobody can see you losing your money and if you are desperate enough you can use other people's cards to place your bets. Credit is easy to obtain and easy to abuse. We have a society which equates money to happiness, some people look up to the Beckhams et al with envious eyes and fail to see that money cannot purchase true happiness. There is the myth that a lottery win brings the answer to all problems and people want to be part of that dream.

Perhaps gambling has replaced religion as the opium of the masses, certainly the government has plans for super casinos. There is one sure thing about keeping people "under the thumb" and that is that it is much easier to do if they are up to their proverbial paps in debt.

There may be hope for the addicted punter though. I notice that betting offices and their fruit machines are now littered with signs advising punters to gamble responsibly. It reminds me a little of the episode of The Simpsons where Marge is addicted to slot machines. Waylon Smithers approaches Marge and asks her "Madam, don't you think you've gambled enough" on hearing her response in the negative he states "Carry on, the gaming commission demands that we ask you the question every 72 hours"

(An article from an Old Scientist - Dounreay 1982-86)