(?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)
John D. Barrow

“All our puzzles about whether or not lambda exists and, if so, what is responsible for giving it such a strange value, are like questions about the inflationary scalar field's potential landscape. Why is its final vacuum state so fantastically close to the zero line? How does it 'know' where to end up when the scalar field starts rolling downhill in its landscape? Nobody knows the answer to these questions. They are the greatest unsolved problems in gravitation physics and astronomy. The nature of their answers could take many forms. There could exist some deep new principle that links together all the different forces of Nature in a way that dictates the vacuum levels of all the fields of energy that feel their effects. This principle would be unlike any that we know because it would need to control all the possible contributions to lambda that arise at symmetry breakings during the expansion of the Universe. It would need to control physics over a vast range of energies.”

John D. Barrow, The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe
Read more quotes from John D. Barrow


Share this quote:
Share on Twitter

Friends Who Liked This Quote

To see what your friends thought of this quote, please sign up!

1 like
All Members Who Liked This Quote



This Quote Is From

The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe by John D. Barrow
1,226 ratings, average rating, 72 reviews
Open Preview

Browse By Tag