#this is probably how string theorists think non-string-theorists sound

[klarriel]

re:misha

nobody is ever going to read this but i need somewhere to vent

i want you to bear this in mind - imagine being misha: you have spent 12 years on a show that you've put your heart and soul into. you've made it with so many people youre friends with, and you've seen them all work hard to make it. you've fought for your character, and in the end it all pays off because you get to have your character speak his truth, and 'die' in the way you've hoped for. then everything goes wrong.

im going to start with the cw/tptb. OBVIOUSLY network television is homophobic. the network has other shows with lgbtq+ representation but when it comes to a long running show, especially with the demographic of spn, they really had no intention of putting two of their leads in a mlm relationship. cas coming out was their limit, and i think people fought for that, but ultimately - cas was always a 'different' character, and fans of the show who were there for cas were more so progressive and open. fans there for the brothers were their legacy audience, and they couldn't risk losing that in the face of walker. even before the pandemic, they were never going to risk that.

im now going to go out on a limb here and say that the fandom also has a part to play in this. obviously not all the fandom, but there has been unnecessary pain caused. some of the meta writers have thrown out theories in the past that have made logical sense, but when they get disproven they change their tune and say we were just interpreting it wrong - I have been in this fandom before. Meta theorists were 100% SURE when Cas became human it was all leading to canon deancas, and it didnt happen. I'm not saying their theories aren't sound or don't have any weight behind them - in a normal world, they would probably be exactly right. but this is supernatural, and when it comes to this show, i feel like giving people endless hope when explicit mutual deancas was never going to happen, didnt sit right with me.

please do not trust information from people who claim to know people or work in areas (eg: dubbing, focus group interviews) that many of them likely don't. i'm not calling everyone liars, but even if you did work in the industry, unless you work in that office where that dub script was decided on, who knows why that dub was put in. like i said, i've been in this fandom before - people spread information to fire the flames

misha did not say it was a bury your gays trope in that panel a week or two ago. he said it potentially plays into the trope. imo he has not contradicted himself - if we're taking him at face value, he likely doesn't think it's bury your gays, as is supported by his video.

all the attacking andrew dabb posts? i get it, it's funny, but i'm sorry - as much as i thought the ending was pretty terribly written, do you really think andrew dabb is the overseer of everything, pulling all the strings? yes he was the show runner, but he would have had no power over the network. his quotes about jensen and misha also seem to be badly executed jokes that when cut down to just those lines are easy to take at face value and out of context

i do think however, that the pain caused by spn goes beyond 15x18, and thats what misha in his video fails to understand. this is an issue of characters like cas and eileen and charlie being killed and then never mentioned again. we all know covid had a detrimental impact to the story and ability to shoot, but i've maintained as have many people that so many issues could have been solved with one line. the erasure of female, lgbtq+ and non-white characters, and characters with disabilities is an issue that is inexcusable and requires recognition and a formal apology by all involved. the lack of character development and refusal to acknowledge the journey the show has taken in the last 15 years is less of an issue, but still contributes to the pain. this is also about, as it always has been, queer baiting using obvious romantic tropes for deancas and then never delivering on it. i think bobo berens and other writers/show runners worked to change this, but ultimately if we look at the deancas legacy, a lot of it was tropes and moments that were never allowed to come to fruition, all in all to keep their audience that was ultimately there for dean/cas/deancas, and keeping viewing figures up (we really did keep this show on air).

i wont sit here and defend mishas words, because to be honest i think they came from a place of frustration and sadness and he worded it wrong, but i think his heart is always with us. he knows how much cas meant to us and fought for him to come out. he is an adult man with a wife and family and other priorities- his top priority is not going to be righting the wrongs of a television show, even one he was so heavily involved in. he's not always going to know what the right thing is to say to a group of people so invested, but what i will say is , as he said - we can write our own ending. of course dean is bi, we don't need spanish translators to tell us that. don't let this invalidate you

[lildevyl]

The Puppet Theory

TW: Zalgo Text, Anti, Puppets!

Hello Guys, Gals, Demons, Ghouls and JSE Fiends!  I’m back with another theory!  Okay, now I’m starting to sound like MatPat.  Alright well, I know I’m probably going to be dodging some major pitchforks and torches but hear me out first!

Well this theory came about because well everything that happened this week with JSE Community Fire!  And something has been on my mind for quite some time!  It’s been “lurking, scratching at my brain, just in case I missed something. Just in case something is hiding.”  I need to know and I need to be in the know.  And yes, I may have problem but this has been bugging for - I don’t know how long.  But it’s been in the back of my mind for a while.

And that’s  .   .  .

Ą̧͞nti̶̸͢S̡e̶p̷̧͘t͏̀i̧͠c̵̴e͏̀y̵̡͡ę͏̵

D҉ò̷͠esǹ'̕t̸̛͠

G̴l͘͘͞it̀͜͡c͝h!̧͡

ANYMORE!  Or at least more recently!

Look I’ve been going around this so much!  What actually got me thinking truly got me thinking was a couple to a few weeks ago I saw this post (of course I can’t find it now b/c I want to link it) about the 2 Year Anniversary of the Kill JackSepticeye  and how everyone kept saying that Jack’s been in a coma for two years.  Now, my brain and my theorist side kept on going, “If Jack’s been in a coma then who’s Anti been channeling through?”

Now, I’m pretty sure that some of you if not most of you are probably going to be saying “Anti has enough power to take a fully corporeal form!” OR “It’s Chase!  Lil Devyl!  Anti’s channeling through Chase!”  Okay, I hear all of you!  But my question is, what evidence do we have?  What evidence do we have that it is Chase Brody that’s being the vessel?

Answer, we don’t have any!  The last “evidence” of Anti going after Chase is last May 2k18 from Dark Silence.  The other thing is, the very first non glitch video that we have was way before Mayhem (aka Egopocalypse).  The first screen shot is from Subnautica Part 28 (Full Release).  Jack is wearing all black and during the killing with a knife, he’s doing the Anti laugh!  If that was Chase, then why would he be doing that?  Answer, he wouldn’t be!

The second screen shot is from #Thankmas.  The screen shot is with Ethan (CrankGamePlays) the time stamp is 3:32:57 (Clip from Circus Tangle).  It’s Jack but not glitches!  Just him making a face and then breathing hard, then the staring.  Familiar?  Well, yeah it’s familiar!  Just about a week after that nine days, we get Quit The Game To Win.  I’m pretty sure I don’t have to put the “infamous” speech here but that time stamp for that is 26:39.

But the thing that keeps making me question whether it’s Chase, is well, two things!  First, is the The Color Theory @bunchofdoodlesinspace.  There is a lot of good details and this also had me thinking.  Specifically, on the “thread” that we see on Jack in Say Goodbye.

The second thing that has me turning the wheels on overdrive, is what AntiSepticeye said in Kill JackSepticeye.  “Well look who’s back?  I am in control!  I’m tired of playing pretend.  Sick of it!  You thought you had him back?  They all follow me.  I’ve kept control all this time.  Nothing gets rid of me.  I am eternal.  Always.  How many times must we go through this?  Again, and again, over and over!  Fucking Circles!  I’m tired of you mocking me with your “Glitch Bitch”  That Doctor thought he could save him.  But he was mine!  He was weak!  Just like the rest of them!  I’ve always been in control.  You all seem fascinated when your just watching.  Powerless.  Who do you think you’ve been watching this whole time, is my puppets.  I am in control.  If you wanted him back so badly then why don’t you save him.  This is my world.  None of these creatures.  There are no strings on me.  Good for you.  This isn’t over.  I wonder what will happen to your favorite boy next time?  This isn’t the end.”

This is all directed to us!  It’s about us and about Jack!  Anti saying he’s “in control and kept control all this time and nothing gets rid of him”.  We created AntiSepticeye.  Jack made him canon.  But the whole thing of “again and again, over and over, f*cking circles.”  How many times will we continue to give Anti power, with fanfictions, head canons, theories, fan art, fan edits, fan-made games but yet we continually will watch until the very end of the video and claim that “We not puppets.”

“There are no strings on me.  Well good for you!”  That was directed at us.  The fans.  The very same fans who created him and will continue to give him power!  we claim not to have strings on us, but how many of us, reblog fanart of Anti?  How many of us watch so closely for any signs of a hint that Anti is there?  How many of us write stories and head canons of Anti being one of the best “Villains”?

“That Doctor thought he could save him.  But he was mine!  He was weak!  Just like the rest of them!  I’ve always been in control.”  This is all about Jack and the Community.  Anti made it look like Dr. Schneeplestein couldn’t save Jack, living through his worst fear as a Doctor.  Unable to save his friend.  Because Anti has always had control over Jack but he could get any control or maintain control on Henrik. The “he was weak, just like the rest of them.”  Anti was referring to Jack not being able to over come his control of him.  From Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location.  Anti’s debut all the way to Say Goodbye.  The “just like the rest of them.”  It wasn’t the other Egos Anti was referring to, it was us!  The Community.

Then there are two finally things.  “Who do you think you’ve been watching this time are my puppets!  I wonder what will happen to your favorite boy?”

Anti is referring to Jack.  We watch Jack constantly!  All of us had joined at different time tables, for different reasons, but all of us enjoyed watching Jack.  Even love all the Ego stuff he does.  Anti couldn’t take over Dr. Schneeplestein fully b/c Anti didn’t make his debut on the Channel for millions to see and make a full appearance until Jack made him a Canon Ego.  After Marvin and Schneeplestein even though Anti has been around longer.

Anti has made Jacke his puppet!  Anti has been channeling through Jack!  That’s why Anti doesn’t always need the glitches.  He can channely through Jack.  Our favorite boy, isn’t one of the Egos, it’s Jack!  We’ve been watching Jack!  Anti took over not in Kill JackSepticeye but in Say Goodbye.  Jack had been giving us hints from January 2k17 all the way until now.  And Anti had even confirmed it!  Jack and us are his puppets and that’s who we’ve been watching.

Jack was never in a coma.  Chase was trying to snap Jack out of it and not be in Anti’s control.  That’s why Chase has taken over from time to time and why Anti started to go after Chase.  Letting Chase know that he, AntiSepticeye knows that it’s not Jack but him.  And that Jack needs to be running the Channel.  Not him.  Not a non-puppet.

Well, that does it for this theory.  Leave a comment to let me know what you think!  And I’ll see you all in the post!  C’ya!

=====================================

Tagging:  @jacksepticeyetheorist, @therealjacksepticeye, @thevampireauthoress, @the-scribe-watches, @septic-dr-schneep, @egopocalypse, @epicfangirl01, @jackjames-exe, @dezzydynamite, @isa-ghost, @isas-theory-wall, @littlepinkchan, @a-humble-narcissus, @huffletrax, @kisstheashes, @kangaroo-roux, @shadowsinyoursoul, @kasper-the-ghost, @weirdmixofweirdness, @corruptedmetadata, @starlightstarfight, @nightfuryobsessed, @run-stray-wolf, @d-structive, @dolphintreasureart, @leotherussianlion, @bunchofdoodlesinspace, @julywinters

[christopherlamell-dualitykid237]

I started wondering tonight about particle physics and if there were non-physical elements like there’s physical elements (metals, no mental sand metallics) that make up our universe. The fundamental interactions are what I immediately thought of as to what energy makes up the non-physical energy, like “Spirit Matter.” Gravitation and the strong force are somewhat alike because they create more energy, or keep matter together. The weak force does the opposing function(s) and it makes energy decay or fall apart. Electromagnetism is alike to the weak force and it’s located in between the potential for stable energy and decaying energy. Its functions are related to electric charges, magnetic movements and the magnetic field. I’m using duality to guess at the functions of electromagnetism and to me, it looks like it’s describing energy decaying and staying stable, so we think of things like magnetic movements that push and pull energy, magnetic fields that effect stable energy and electric charges which seems like is energy stabilizing from some quasi-decay. If the middle ground is all about “stabilizing” energy, then dark matter and dark energy are probably so related, they could be the same force. The original line of thinking was that these interactions are the elements of the non-physical world but after observing reality, it seems like the elements that make up the non-physical energy are more like the natural elements of the physical world. Spirit and heat are two prime examples of non physical energies that aren’t made up of the fundamental interactions. So, will there be a non-physical element(s) to make the elemental table after duality breaks through into particle physics? What gives non-physical energy different colors, feel, sound, etc. could be explained with a non-physical elemental chart. What would the opposites be that make up the non-physical elements?: active and dormant, changing and staying the same, vibrant and dull, etc. These characteristics of non-physical energy would be like atomic weight, element features, etc. Maybe strings are the elements of non-physical energy. I’m not sure how far into string theory we’ve gotten and I’m not sure how chaotic our grasps at understanding strings are because I’ve heard scientists aren’t getting anywhere with the study, but duality might help there, too. When I studied strings, I concluded with duality studies that if there’s strings, they can be still or in motion, separate or connected…even semi-connected…and they’re multi-dimensional, like membranes or one cell organisms. Since they’re non-physical, they can cross one another and create a semi-connected state. The four interactions of space still pull, push and stabilize on the strings and for some reason, this idea is why I think string theory is falling part so much. Non-physical energy that becomes excited seems to be able to be excited easier than physical matter—as if physical matter were the dormant sister of active non-physical energy. It seems like strings supposedly “jump around” because potential exists and potential is a non-physical energy…for one…and when a string gets excited, it can move through space more easily since there’s no dense matter. Who knows how fast strings can move? This theory of strings, “The Well of Knowledge String Theory,” also corrects the rocky absolutes of subatomic particles. The spin is never actually absolute one; the spin is at AROUND one. The charge, likewise, is never at ABSOLUTE one; it’s at around one, instead. This problem with quantum mechanics is what I think leads to string theory problems. It makes me want to say, “No wonder string theorists think physics allows strings to ‘misbehave.’” They probably can’t do the impossible and the problem IS something easy to fix. Anyway, I thought I’d share some duality studies. Thanks to the well of knowledge, Wikipedia and google.

[mostleemorethansmut]

Child

Matthew paced back and forth. “Please stop that,” his wife ordered.

“What?” he asked, “I’m nervous.”

“Well it’s making me nervous!”

Stephanie joined him in walking back and forth across the floor.

Matt sighed. “Is the result there yet?”

Steph shook her head.

“Let’s go on a walk,” the theorist decided. The woman nodded and got on her shoes. They linked arms and walked down sidewalk. Something leapt out and grabbed Matthew’s leg.

Matt jumped up and began to shake his cat off of his leg. “Skip!” he complained. “Stop!”

Skip clung on, but when the foot was set down, he crawled off and nuzzled up against Stephanie’s leg. “Aww,” she cooed, crouching down to pet the animal. “He’s so cute.”

“Stupid cat,” Matthew cursed. He glanced down at his wife. “Do you think he knows?”

“Skip?” Steph frowned at the cat. “We don’t even know the answer. How would he?”

Skip meowed, probably still complaining about how he was a boy without the relating parts.

“Well, animals are instinctive like that. I mean, he could be consoling us, or protecting the baby.”

Stephanie clearly didn’t think of this. She stroked the cat and picked him in her arms. Skip jumped from Steph to Matthew, making the man flail trying to keep the cat up. Finally, Skip snuggled into Matt’s chest. “I guess I have a cat now,” he joked.

His wife leaned up against him and they continued down the street, like the sickly adorable that they were. Matthew wasn’t paying to his feet. He placed one in front of the other, sliding the toe along the concrete.

Then the toe caught. It hit the edge of the curb. His other foot sprang forward to catch himself, but it caught upon another crack in the sidewalk, and he fell forward. The cat flew from his hands and out onto the road. There was a squeal of an annoyed cat, a squeal of tires, a loud thud and crunch, and finally a sad meow.

Skips cries of pain called out for attention. Matthew picked himself up and rushed to join his wife at his pet’s side. Stephanie picked up the the cat and was trying her best to push his guts back into him, but it was clearly fruitless.

“Shh shh shh,” calmed Matthew the animal, trying to help his wife.

“It’s okay,” Stephanie helped, curling up the cat. “We’re here for you.”

Skip breathed his last on the road.

*

Everyone expects to bury a pet, but as Matthew dug the shallow grave, he thought about when they first got Skip. They wanted a non-allergenic cat. They wanted someone they could raise together.

Matt went back and thought about the times he imagined burying skip. He always imagined having the day out. He imagined taking skip to the park, feeding him fish and playing with string before taking him to the vet.

That didn’t happen. Instead, here he was. Digging a grave for his pet after it had been hit by a car. And it was all his fault. Stephanie held Skip in a plastic bag so the animal guts wouldn’t get everywhere.

She placed it in and Matthew filled up the grave. They washed their hands and then just stood in front of the grave. “I feel like I should say something,” Matt finally broke the silence. They both had been quietly crying. “But all I can come up with is that it’s all my fault.”

Stephanie looked up at her husband. “No, no, you can’t blame yourself.” She reached up and rubbed his shoulder. “Please, this could’ve happened to anyone. It’s-” her voice cracked and she had to stop for a moment. “It was inevitable anyways.”

Matt stared at the lump of ground in the back yard. He wrapped his arm around Steph. “I-I feel horrible.”

Stephanie hugged him. “Me too. But remember, it’s not your fault.” She peaked up on her toes and kissed him. “I have some good news, though. The test was positive.”

Matthew directed his gaze down at her. A few seconds separated his mind and her words. “We’re…” he began, “having… a baby?” He saw her smile and he slowly began to understand. “We’re having a baby!” he celebrated, giving her a hug.

They found themselves in a deep kiss. They broke away and Matt turned back to the grave. “Bittersweet,” he muttered, holding his wife close.

*

Matthew’s dreams would not let him forget his actions. In his dream he walked down the road. He tripped again. Skip was ran over again. Then Matt got up and continued down the street. As he walked along, his cat re-joined him in his arms.

MatPat’s dream repeated itself. He just killed his cat and continued down the sidewalk, then he picked up the cat again and killed it again. It repeated itself over and over again. Matt continued to feel worse and worse. He tripped again, and the cat left his hands. Involuntarily, he looked up.

Skip licked his face. Matt was surprised. Skip hadn’t been run over. From behind him he heard Stephanie yell, “Matthew! Watch out!” Matt turned his head and saw a tire heading straight for his face.

Panting, MatPat popped up in bed. He tried to settle himself down and cuddle up to his wife. He tried to place his hand on her, but she wasn’t there. There was a heaving sound from the bathroom.

Matt walked over to the bathroom. He watched his wife for a moment before kneeling down to hold her hair back. “Morning sickness?” he asked.

Stephanie nodded weakly. “Did your nightmare come back again?”

“Yeah,” Matthew admitted. “It’s just getting scarier and scarier.”

“Well, soon we’ll have a little thing to take care of again.”

“Not soon enough.”

Steph tried to laugh, but ended up puking into the toilet again.

*

The dream had changed. It wasn’t Skip in his arms this time. It was a child. It was giggling as Matt scratched beneath their chin. He was walking down the street again. The panic was building. Matt was in control of his mind, but not his actions.

“Look at your feet!” he yelled to no one in particular. His body didn’t listen. It continued to talk to Stephanie and walk down the street. The foot caught the ground. Matt fell and the baby went flying through the air.

The baby landed on the pavement and wailed as its skull broke open. In an instant, a car drove over their child. He felt Stephanie grab his arm.

He felt Stephanie grab his arm.

Matthew focused on the hand. The dream began to fade. Stephanie’s hand was shaking him. “Matthew!” he heard her quietly calling. “Wake up!”

Matt shook himself away and looked at his wife. “You were having a nightmare again,” she explained. Crying, Matt gave his wife a hug.

Steph just held him close. “It’s okay,” she spake quietly to calm him down. “Please don’t use my hair as a kleenex.”

Matt chuckled and sniffed away some of his snot. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” she pried.

“I was carrying,” Matt stopped to take a long breath, “the baby and I dropped him like Skip.” Matt burst into tears again.

“Oh, shh shh,” Steph consoled, holding him close. “It’s okay. It’s fine. She’s fine. You can talk to her if you want.”

Matt let out a hiccup of laughter and slid down to her bulging stomach. Stephanie had taken to holding it as she walked around. “Hey there little buddy,” he said softly. Steph laughed, the air tickling her stomach. “I’m gonna take good care of you,” Matt continued. He planted a kiss on the stomach then went back up to his wife.

Stephanie ran her hands through his messed up hair. “You’ll be a great father. Now get some sleep.” She gave him a kiss on the forehead and watched him try to snuggle into the pillow again. The problem wasn’t fixed, but it had become much smaller.

[shirlleycoyle]

Physicists Are Studying Mysterious ‘Bubbles of Nothing’ That Eat Spacetime

The universe might be on track to eat itself from the inside out.

Luckily for us, physicists studying the phenomenon, called “spacetime decay”, believe this is very unlikely. Still, the possibility is interesting enough to explore in mind-boggling detail, covering “bubbles of nothing” in spacetime, hidden extra dimensions, and a hypothetical observer hitching a ride on the outer surface of our universe.

The idea that in specific scenarios the universe would be entirely destroyed by an expanding bubble of nothing has been around since 1982, when theoretical physicist Edward Witten introduced the possibility of the universe eating itself in a paper in Nuclear Physics B journal. He wrote: “A hole spontaneously forms in space and rapidly expands to infinity, pushing to infinity anything it may meet.”

Given that a bubble of nothing has not in fact destroyed the universe, neither in the 13 billion years before Witten published his paper nor in the 38 years since, it would be reasonable for physicists to push it down the research priority list. But three physicists at the University of Oviedo in Spain and the University of Uppsala in Sweden argue that we can learn important lessons from an all-consuming, universe-destroying bubble in a wonderfully titled paper, “Nothing Really Matters”, submitted to the Journal of High-Energy Physics this month.

In particular, understanding the conditions for spacetime decay through a bubble of nothing is a step towards connecting the best theories about the tiniest building blocks of the universe—strings—with theories about space and time itself.

The unstable universe

It's commonly understood that a vacuum is a region of total emptiness, so it’s confusing to think that our entire universe which contains planet earth, distant galaxies and everything in between is almost entirely a vacuum. But the fact that our universe is mostly vacuum is part of the reason it exists in a relatively stable state.

In quantum field theory, which connects quantum physics and the dynamics of spacetime, a vacuum is better understood as the lowest possible energy state. “Excited” quantum states with energy above a vacuum state don’t stay excited for very long, and tend to quickly decay down to lower energy states by emitting photons and other packets of energy. Vacuums don’t have lower energy states to decay down to, and so exist happily in a stable state.

Since most of our universe is a vacuum and already in the lowest possible energy state, we shouldn’t have to worry about spacetime decay. In theoretical physics, however, assumptions like that are rarely stable themselves.

In the early 1970s, a few Russian physicists separately explored the idea that there’s a middle ground between a stable vacuum and an unstable non-vacuum: a vacuum-like state which seems stable because of the very long time period it will stay in this “metastable” state before decaying. Now referred to as a “false vacuum”, the suggestion was an attempt to resolve inconsistencies in theories about early conditions in the universe, the effects of gravity, and cosmological observations.

“[A bubble of nothing] describes a possible channel for 'universe destruction;' in that the bubble of nothing expands and can 'eat' all of spacetime, converting it into 'nothing'"

Although the new concept of a false vacuum was suggested to describe only a transition period before the Big Bang, more recent research into the Higgs Field (a quantum force field famously detected by particle accelerator CERN) suggests we might still be living in a false vacuum after all, since what was previously thought to be the stable (lowest energy) state of a Higgs field might not be the lowest energy state.

The possibility that the stability of our universe is a very long illusion has opened up looming questions about how and why the delicate false vacuum might decay. One answer is through a "bubble of nothing."

Infinite nothing and hidden dimensions

A bubble of nothing is one example of a "spacetime bubble" where spacetime has different properties inside and outside the bubble boundary. Other types of bubbles might have different strengths of dark energy inside and outside the bubble, for example, but bubbles of nothing have no interior at all, says paper author and researcher at Uppsala University, Marjorie Schillo.

If a bubble of nothing spontaneously forms in false-vacuum spacetime, it will grow and eventually swallow the entire universe. “[A bubble of nothing] describes a possible channel for 'universe destruction;' in that the bubble of nothing expands and can 'eat' all of spacetime, converting it into 'nothing.'” says Schillo.

But why would a bubble of nothing form in the first place? The answer lies in string theory, a popular and successful candidate for a “theory of everything” which postulates tiny entities called strings with properties that other fundamental particles don’t have. In particular, strings have a vibrational state which accounts for quantum gravity. In other words, the theory integrates phenomena in quantum physics with the behaviour and effects of gravitational fields. This result is much-sought after, and is a significant reason why string theory is so popular.

Such a tantalizingly complete theory relies on several assumptions that are not guaranteed. The maths of string theory only works if there are more than four dimensions: three spatial dimensions, a time dimension, and then lots of other dimensions that are so small that they can’t be detected, only derived mathematically. In string theory, the geometry of our universe only appears to be four dimensional spacetime because the extra dimensions are tightly compacted and hidden.

For mathematical reasons that are almost too technical to explain in words, bubbles of nothing won’t form in four dimensional spacetime, but they will form in “stringy” multidimensional spacetime. One model of stringy spacetime is called a Kaluza-Klein vacuum, and in this model the probability of a bubble of nothing destroying everything is one (i.e. certain) across an infinite space. Physicists actually aren’t sure if our universe is an infinite or finite volume, but reassuringly, the result that bubble-of-nothing universe destruction is 100 percent certain is seen as something to rectify, not something to worry about.

“It would be interesting to work out under what conditions an observer could 'ride' on the bubble of nothing and see a universe that is similar to the one we live in"

As Czech string theorist Luboš Motl notes in a surprisingly funny blog post, a bubble of nothing catastrophe should be used to rule out descriptions of our universe, since if it was going to happen, it should have already happened.

“We don't know whether our spacetime is exactly stable. It is plausible that it is threatened by a cosmic catastrophe,” he writes. “But because the Universe has lived for [around 14 billion years]… we know that the probability of the birth of a deadly [bubble of nothing] shouldn't be much larger than [an extremely tiny number far less than one]."

He goes on: “If a theory predicted a (much) larger probability density of a lethal destructive tumor, it would also predict that our Universe should have been (certainly) destroyed by now. But it wasn't so the theory would have a problem.”

Schillo agrees. She says that her research into bubbles of nothing aims, in part, at establishing what the implications are for string-theoretic descriptions of the universe, given that spacetime decay via a bubble of nothing is very unlikely.

“It is important to understand these decay channels because if we want a stringy vacuum to describe our universe, instabilities like the bubble of nothing must be either extremely rare or absent,” she says.

Riding on a bubble

The bubble of nothing serves another purpose, too. Schillo and others believe that the mathematical description of a universe-destroying bubble of nothing could also be used to model the origin of the universe.

The behaviour of a rapidly expanding bubble of nothing is a good approximation for the early inflation of the universe. More specifically, the outer surface of a growing bubble of nothing would look very much like the creation of the universe, if it were possible to watch universe creation from the outside.

This may sound far-fetched, but it’s a key focus of theoretical physics and early universe cosmology. “One of the future topics of research that I am most excited about is looking into the 'universe creation' aspect of this work," Schillo said.

“It would be interesting to work out under what conditions an observer could 'ride' on the bubble of nothing and see a universe that is similar to the one we live in," she explained. "Because the bubble expands, such an observer would see an expanding universe, and this could explain the observed dark energy.”

So, you definitely don't have to worry about a bubble of nothing gobbling up all of spacetime. But if you’ve ever wondered what the universe looked like when it first exploded, it’s certainly worth keeping up with bubble research.

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