I've asked this before and haven't gotten an answer. I've emailed askaphysicist, NASA, Hayden Planetarium, etc and gotten no reply.
If the universe spawned from a quantum fluctuation, and required a gravitational field to provide negative energy to accomplish the needed zero net energy, where did the gravitational field come from in the absence of space time and mass to warp it?
2013-08-07T11:22:15Z
@Nothing: If particles with rest mass didn't emerge until the Quark Epoch then there was no potential for gravity until then. A quantum fluctuation with that much energy would disappear as fast as it appeared without a gravitational field. Why didn't it.
2013-08-07T12:31:43Z
-edit- My confusion comes down to a matter of timing. The Higgs Field (and therefore the four fundamental forces) did not emerge until near the end of the Quark Epoch. The "ingredients" needed for a gravitational field did not exist until then. How then did the singularity persist without the gravitational field? Without the Higgs Field, we cannot have gravity or gravitational fields, and the singularity should not have been able to persist.
2013-08-07T12:33:45Z
@quantumclaustrophobe: Now, that's interesting. There's no evidence for a multiverse, but if it exists, could the gravity from another universe have provided the conditions needed? I wonder how that would would work ... I'm not a physicist, but how could gravity "spill" from one universe to another?
2013-08-07T14:42:26Z
@John: If the Big Bang was sudden and drastic expansion of a singularity, and the origin of the universe (according to Hawking and Krauss) was a quantum fluctuation, then I was making the assumption that the fluctuation was the origin of the singularity (correct me if I'm wrong there). Since the net energy of said fluctuation could not be zero until the Quark Epoch, how did it persist? A fluctuation with that much energy should not have lasted long enough to make it to the Quark Epoch. I'll re-read your answer a few times, but I'm still confused.
quantumclaustrophobe2013-08-07T12:18:57Z
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I don't have an answer for your question, but it *does* spark another supposition:
In order for our universe to have been spawned (in the presence of some gravity field, which is required), then *another* universe must have been in existence. In order for *that* universe to exist, the same prerequisite must apply - another universe must have existed for the gravity field to have existed to generate our 'parent' universe. So, two things: 1 - the supposition must be wrong, because there *was* a start to our universe (and if it required another to get started - there must have been some other event that caused that first universe to spring into being...) And 2 - if the supposition is correct, then, by the rules, how our universe was created does not explain how the first universe was created...
Again, apologies for no answers and more questions - but yours is an excellent question.
You're mistaking cause and effect, the gravity and negative energy was the result of the displacement in energy not the cause of it. A quantum fluctuation is a change in the quantum vacuum energy at a point, a change in the false vacuum. An analogy would be if you had a ball resting on the ground, it would have a zero potential energy but if you dug a hole underneath it, the ball would suddenly be imbued with potential energy. Just like the placid water of a reservoir becomes a raging torrent when the flood gates are opened, energy, gravity and negative energy ( note it's usually stated that the gravity is the negative counterpart to energy for the net sum of zero ) spring up from the expanding space time and the lowering false vacuum. Gravity isn't a cause in the Big Bang, it's an effect of the expansion.
The presumed singularity was an extrapolation of general relativity but quantum mechanics applies at the scale of the big bang. There was no matter at the big bang and there was no energy other than the false vacuum hence there was no singularity and no requirement for a gravitationally held singularity as in a black hole. It's an erroneous assumption to compare the big bang to a black hole.
"Quantum fluctuation" two words placed together with the purpose of describing how "one can deliver something from nothing" ( that old chestnut. )
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is often quoted in an attempt to give credibility, and experiment is said to show this "something from nothing" actually happens, although how? something can be shown to come from nothing when "nothing" is un achievable, particularly on a planet shrouded by "spacetime," defies logic. You see the problem with "Quantum fluctuation" is that it can't easily be denounced because in two words it covers almost all "beginnings" you can think of (almost), even multiverse had to have an origin.
" If I were to say." All that we know will end in a "temporal seizure," you can see this does nothing to describe the how or why time would stop, but it covers pretty much every conceivable ending to the universe, if time carried on afterwards, "no problem," there will be no one left to point that out.
I am not going to give you a more detailed answer to your question at this time, but I can tell you the question is answerable "Thinkonit." Either people have forgotten how to think for themselves, or they do not believe they sufficiently can.
" Read less, think more." . . No Big Bang, no singularity and "Never" Nothing. . . . "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." Albert Einstein.
"Information is not knowledge." Albert Einstein. . .
The answer is unknown, but perhaps not unknowable. We may only approach the truth as our computers get smart enough to model everything that happened in the first millisecond of the existence of the Universe. Or maybe the computers will decide we don't deserve the answer.
What might help with your question, though, is that currently we have four forces acting on us, but at the time of the quantum fluctuation you speak of, they hadn't formed, yet. See the problem? This one is going to take some time to unravel.
The North and South pole individual magnets are the cosmic force. They are the building blocks of nature's perpetual transformation of matter, and they are so small that they can pass through everything,. They pass through the earth from pole to pole, and around the earth. If the North and South pole individual magnets could not pass through a vacuum tube the same as the Thomson's electrons cannot, then they could not be the building blocks. The Thomson electrons are very small parts of matter which come out of the cathode while the cathode is burned up or consumed in the vacuum tube. Without the general circulation of the building blocks there would be no change. Everything would remain the same way as it is now. The building blocks from a matter that go to pieces could not get in the general circulation for the new construction.
I think the Radium and Uranium were built up inside the earth with high pressure, and heat, while the North and South pole individual magnets were circulating through the earth. During the time the Radium and Uranium were inside the earth they absorbed more of the individual North and South pole magnets than they normally could hold, and so now while they are on top of the earth they let the magnets go so they can become normal again.
Gravitation must be caused by the matter in the middle of the earth, and more concentrated than Uranium. When Uranium atoms burst they release the North and South pole individual magnets that held the atom together, then the magnets scatter all around, they can only pass from the middle to the outside. When the North and South pole magnets are running alongside each other and in the same direction, they have no attraction for the other kind. They only attract if they are running one kind against the other kind. When the magnets are running out of the middle of the earth, as soon as they meet an object they attract it, on account of the fact that in any object there is both kinds of magnets in it. It can be seen by rubbing hard rubber or glass until they get hot., then they will attract sand, iron filings, salt, and other things. To see how it functions, move a salt crystal a little, if it happens to get on a different magnet pole, then it will jump away. Another way is to rub hard rubber until it gets hot, then it will be a temporary magnet. The difference between the rubber magnet and the steel magnet is both North and South poles are in the same side of the rubber and the magnet poles are small and there are many of them close together, but the surplus magnets in the circulating magnet that was put in it. Attract the iron filings with the rubber magnet, then approach with the steel magnet, Change the poles, then you will see some of the filings jump away. This means the steel magnet changed the magnet poles in the iron filings, and so they jumped away.