Wuwei
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- Apr 18, 2015
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From wikipedia with search for QED vacuum:Fort Fun Indiana
Just to be clear, is your idea of "nothing" exemplified by "a dense state of energy and matter"?
The quantum theory asserts that a vacuum, even the most perfect vacuum devoid of any matter, is not really empty. Rather the quantum vacuum can be depicted as a sea of continuously appearing and disappearing [pairs of] particles that manifest themselves in the apparent jostling of particles that is quite distinct from their thermal motions. These particles are ‘virtual’, as opposed to real, particles. ...At any given instant, the vacuum is full of such virtual pairs, which leave their signature behind, by affecting the energy levels of atoms.
The virtual particles in the vacuum were predicted decades ago and verified by Casmir in the early 1990s.
The vacuum virtual particles also contribute to the apparent mass of a neutron and affect other phenomena. Krauss and others posit that the density of the quantum vacuum reached a threshold that somehow blew up (The Big Bang).