And Now a Few Words from a Guy Who Probably Embrasses His Kids a Lot

You probably don't recognize the guy in the picture above... but... he's kind of a big deal.. probably only to nerds like me, but nonetheless. His name is Lawrence Krauss, and if you have a strange hobby of being obsessed with theoretical cosmology and physics like I do, then he cuts a pretty impressive figure. in 1995, he and his friend Michael S. Turner (from the University of Chicago) theorized that there must be some sort of cosmological constant that was holding the universe together like a fly caught in honey-- moderating its expansion and (very slow) expansion/explosion into nothing. A few years later, they coined the term "dark energy" by discovering the cosmological constant that was very slowly accelerating the expansion of the universe as we know it. You know, no big. The important thing to take away from this discovery is that it proved that nothingness was, in a way, both nothing and a very big something simultaneously (I mean, it's exploding our universe, that's all).

Dr. Krauss is back now with some new questions to warp your mind. Maybe it's just because I've only just returned from vacation, but my mind has recently been consumed with a larger mix of big questions-- "Why am I here? How am I here? Am I making the right decisions?" along with my daily #firstworldproblems "How did my friend get nutella on my white coat? How did she get it on the inside armpit?!".

In a New York Times Article entitled "There's More to Nothing Than We Knew", Dr. Krauss introduces his new question to the universe (Ba dum dum! Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week-- tip your waitress). As a strong opponent of creationist theory, Dr. Krauss is asking "Why should we assume that nothingness is more natural than somethingness?"-- to put it in other words (from an equally reputable nerd, Alan H. Guth from MIT), "The universe could be the ultimate free lunch!".

The reasoning is this-- creationist theory is founded on the idea that the universe is so perfect-- a culmination of such precise and perfectly compatible conditions that there must be some sort of "intelligent design" or interference from an otherworldy source (you may have seen him around-- white robes, long white beard, had a nice kid named Adam...answers to "alpha and omega", and (if you're into the Old Testament) he also warned of fire and brimstone before his anger management classes). Dr. Krauss believes that there are three types of nothing: emptiness of space (a very ancient method of thinking popularized by the Greeks), a nothing that lacks even space and time and a third type where even the laws of physics are absent. Here, he asks another mind-blowing question, "Where do the laws come from? Are they born with the universe, or is the universe born in accordance with them?". To answer, he reverts to multi-universe (string) theory, where everything that has happened and everything that will happen are all simultaneously happening. So not to scare the OCD-ers out there, but maybe quantum randomness really is the root of existence...

So. Not to alarm anyone, but it is 2012, and here's this guy who is basically saying that although something could be a more natural resting state of existence than nothingness, nothingness will eventually get us at both ends. Think of time/space as a candy. The somethingness is the creamy nougat in the center which we are enjoying currently, but it's capped at both ends with nothing and wrapped in a whole lot of nothing. Once this brevity of existence if over, the universe could potentially revert back to an empty, chocolate-smeared nothing wrapper in an existential (nihilist? haha...) trash can. Add in the multi-verse theory and your mind should now be swimming in a container truck of these little existence candies...His depth of thinking is really quite succinct, and I can't articulate it better than the New York Times already has, so...

"The universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not," Dr. Krauss writes. It gets worse. If nothing is our past, it could also be our future. As the universe, driven by dark energy-- that is to say-- the negative pressure of nothing-- expands faster and faster, the galaxies will become invisible, and all the energy and information will be sucked out of the cosmos. The universe will revert to nothingness. Nothing to nothing. One day it's all going to seem like a dream. But who is or was the dreamer?

Can you imagine having this guy as a dad? This is how I imagine it:

Krauss: "What are you doing today son?"
Son: "Nothing, just hanging around."
Krauss: "Well, you've technically been doing nothing and everything haven't you?"
Son: "Dad!!! Can I just have my allowance?"
Krauss: "In another universe, I've already given it to you..."
Son: *grumble* "I'm going to the mall."
Krauss: "You're already there!"
*vulgar hand gesture from son*