https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/book ... rauss.html
Krauss seems to be thinking that these vacuum states amount to the relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical version of there not being any physical stuff at all. And he has an argument — or thinks he does — that the laws of relativistic quantum field theories entail that vacuum states are unstable. And that, in a nutshell, is the account he proposes of why there should be something rather than nothing.
But that’s just not right. Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. The true relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical equivalent to there not being any physical stuff at all isn’t this or that particular arrangement of the fields — what it is (obviously, and ineluctably, and on the contrary) is the simple absence of the fields! The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.
FYI, at the level of QM, that NY times critique sums up Krauss' lame and utterly bogus argument very nicely. Krauss simply redefines the term "nothing" to suit himself, unethically so. The author of that review has limited article space so he doesn't attempt to dismantle his full 'magic' show, but he thoroughly dismantles the QM side of his argument.
The Krauss Magic show begins and ends with his inconsistent misuse of various misleading terms, his arbitrary assignments of energy states, and his misrepresentation of the total energy of a system as it is defined by GR (E=MC^2) and fixates on simple potential energy as it’s defined by Newton. It’s all done with a specific intent, specifically to confuse the reader and to misrepresent the scientific facts.
For instance, on page 95 Krauss describes the early universe as “hot, dense and in thermal equilibrium”. By its very *definition* “heat” implies a *net positive* kinetic energy. Heat is typically associated with a positive kinetic energy of particles. When we talk about the temperature of a plasma, its temperature is directly associated with the plasma particle speed/velocity and its corresponding kinetic energy. His chosen terms of “hot” and ‘dense’ implies that we start with a large number of fast moving particles compressed into a relatively small region. Thermal equilibrium implies that this compact region is not losing or gaining any of its existing kinetic energy or “heat”, so he’s clearly describing a net positive energy state.
Krauss basically misdirects the reader by trying to hide/ignore the fact that he started with a hot compact universe which contains net positive kinetic energy by definition, and to which he added a “bubbling boiling brew” of quantum energy, and he added more energy still in the form of inflation. He never had “nothing”, he always had a net positive *something*, in fact he had three net positive somethings which he had added together and falsely describes as a “quantum nothingness”. He even keeps referring to "Newtonian" definitions of *potential* energy in the expanded state only so he can try to ignore the whole E=MC^2 aspect of GR theory, as well as the energy required to generate expansion, when describing the total energy state of the universe.
The whole book is a deceptive piece of crap IMO. It was obviously intended to promote his particularly egotisitcal brand of evangelical atheism rather than describing actual science. His whole claim about "nothing" is utterly wrong at the level of physics. The purpose of the book is misdirected at religion and even the religious leaders he's talked to about his bogus claims have correctly busted his show as the NY Times article points out:
Krauss, mind you, has heard this kind of talk before, and it makes him crazy. A century ago, it seems to him, nobody would have made so much as a peep about referring to a stretch of space without any material particles in it as “nothing.” And now that he and his colleagues think they have a way of showing how everything there is could imaginably have emerged from a stretch of space like that, the nut cases are moving the goal posts. He complains that “some philosophers and many theologians define and redefine ‘nothing’ as not being any of the versions of nothing that scientists currently describe,” and that “now, I am told by religious critics that I cannot refer to empty space as ‘nothing,’ but rather as a ‘quantum vacuum,’ to distinguish it from the philosopher’s or theologian’s idealized ‘nothing,’ ” and he does a good deal of railing about “the intellectual bankruptcy of much of theology and some of modern philosophy.” But all there is to say about this, as far as I can see, is that Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical critics are absolutely right. Who cares what we would or would not have made a peep about a hundred years ago? We were wrong a hundred years ago. We know more now. And if what we formerly took for nothing turns out, on closer examination, to have the makings of protons and neutrons and tables and chairs and planets and solar systems and galaxies and universes in it, then it wasn’t nothing, and it couldn’t have been nothing, in the first place. And the history of science — if we understand it correctly — gives us no hint of how it might be possible to imagine otherwise.
I'm really glad that I didn't spend much on this book (<7.00) or support Krauss financially in any way with my purchase of a used book from the Goodwill. I still feel slimed and I feel like I wasted my time even reading such an unethical and irrational misrepresentation of physics, but I don't mind supporting the Goodwill.