space-time

Almost all physicists who work on quantum gravity state that space-time is emergent, not fundamental. If space-time is emergent, what does it mean? Since space-time could not exist before the emergence of space-time, the emergence of space-time means that there is another layer in the universe below the layer of space-time where there is no space-time, and from which layer space-time has emerged. If two points are in the layer of the universe where space-time is real, there will be some distance between those two points.

Once scientists have come to the conclusion that space-time is not fundamental, but emergent, now many things will change in physics and cosmology. One such change is that cosmologists can no longer hold that the universe has originated from nothing.

There is good reason to believe that something or someone exists beyond space-time. Whatever exists within space-time is contingent upon space-time for its existence; if space-time is gone, then everything within space-time will also be gone. So it cannot acquire any property or characteristic from space-time itself or from anything within space-time that will make space-time itself non-existent, because by that process it will cause its own demise. This is simple common sense. Our existence is contingent upon the existence of earth; so if we destroy the earth, we will also be destroyed.

When scientists say that the universe can simply come out of nothing without any divine intervention, they think of the universe in terms of its energy content only. In the book ‘The Grand Design’, page 281, scientist Stephen Hawking has written that bodies like stars or black holes cannot just appear out of nothing, but a whole universe can. The message is very clear from this: The total energy of a whole universe is zero and that is why it can come out of nothing; but stars or black holes will fail to do so, because their total energy is not zero.