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# Why Is There Something Instead of Nothing?

## Details

**Authors** Lawrence Krauss

**Year** 2014

**Publisher** Scientific American (Video)

**Discipline** Mathematics

[Read it](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing-video/)

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To answer the question: why is there something rather than nothing?

### What they found (results)

Nothing and something have to coexist in the universe and aided in the creation of all that we know.

## Commentary

### In short

Identity and other are inherently built into the fabric of the universe.

### In more detail

Theoretical physicist, Lawrence Krauss, Director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University and author of "A Universe From Nothing" explains the reason there is something rather than nothing is simply that “nothing is unstable” and that if one waits long enough something will emerge from nothing. He states,

“Once you combine quantum mechanics and relativity, empty space, which apparently of course is nothing, it is not so simple. It's actually a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles popping in and out of existence, in a time scale so short you can't see them. And in fact, if you wait long enough, and allow gravity to operate empty space will eventually start producing particles.”

Ergo, something exists as part of the real world or universe, or reality. That something is of course many things today, and the backdrop for either the entirety of that something is nothing. At the same time, if we were to single out one of the parts of that aggregate something the backdrop for any element is not only nothing, but all the other somethings which are not that thing. Of course, what we single out with our mind’s eye may be in alignment with something real and discrete in the universe, but it may also be a figment of our imagination or an approximation of something real that is so flawed as to be a heavily biased version of it. Regardless, distinguishable entities exist—whether in the natural or “real” world or in the mind (i.e., conceptual entities) or both.

**Patterns it shows** D

**How to cite this** Lawrence Krauss (2014). Why Is There Something Instead of Nothing?. Scientific American (Video).