Is the Universe fundamentally unstable? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Oct, 2022


In a vacuum decay scenario, our Universe exists in a false minimum state, and it’s possible to arrive, either through quantum tunneling or an energetic kick that causes us to leave that state, to enter a true (or truer) vacuum state. If that happens anywhere, every bound structure, from protons on up, will be destroyed in a “bubble of destruction” propagating outward at the speed of light. (Credit: Darkspace.net forums)

There are certain properties about the Universe that for better or worse we take for granted. The laws of physics, we presume, are the same at other locations in…



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