Krauss discusses origins of universe

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" asked Lawrence Krauss in the opening to his lecture based on his book, "A Universe From Nothing."

Krauss, a theoretical physics professor at Arizona State University, spoke on Feb. 16 as the last keynote speaker of Darwin Week, an event hosted by the University of Northern Iowa Freethinkers and Inquirers.

According to Krauss, the universe began from absolutely nothing.  Krauss said the answer to why there is something instead of nothing is found by examining the space between the stars.

Krauss said the universe is 13.7 billion years old with billions of galaxies and trillions of stars.  However, the stars, planets, comets and other solid matter only make up 1 percent of the energy in the universe. The rest of the energy is found in dark matter and in dark energy, which is simply empty space.

Krauss explained that all of this energy came from the Big Bang. He said that in 1923, scientists discovered the universe is still expanding from the force of the Big Bang. If the universe did not keep expanding, gravity would cause all the stars to collapse, and the universe would fold in on itself.

Getting to his main point, Krauss explained that when there was nothing, nothing was unstable. Virtual particles would pop in and out of existence for tiny fractions of a second. Eventually, due to the laws of quantum mechanics, something came from this unstable nothing and the universe came into existence.

"I liked the whole idea of nothing as energy," said Alexander Newkirk, a freshman geography major. "He was saying that this universe and everything about it came up from nothing, and I thought that was quite interesting."

Jim Demastes, a biology professor at UNI, said he felt "this was a first-class lecture."     

"Dr. Krauss is internationally famous, and he lived up to the hype," Demastes said. "He did a great lecture, had lots of up-to-date information, and he was asking and answering big questions. It was fun."

Brittany Deal, a junior studio art and art history double major and member of UNIFI, said this lecture was her favorite part of Darwin Week.    

"I've only been able to go to the three keynote speakers, and all of them have been really good, but my favorite part had to be this lecture," Deal said. "Out of all three lectures, it brought something in that I wouldn't have gone out of my way to look into."

When asked, Krauss said he began exploring the origins of the universe because it "seems to me to be one of the most exciting adventures humans can embark on."

"(It's) one of the questions that have been around since we've been human, and the effort to find the answer traces a long history of the best and brightest in human history, and it's been a privilege to join those people," Krauss said.

When asked what points he wanted the public to go home with, he answered, "First, that you are much more insignificant than you think and, secondly, that the future is miserable."