“Is the universe a free lunch” by Kevin Rogers
September 8, 2024
On the 22nd August Kevin Rogers gave a talk on “Is the universe a free lunch?”
It takes a lot of energy to launch a rocket into outer space. Likewise, it seems pretty obvious that it would also take an enormous amount of energy to cause our universe to expand against the force of gravity. However, some cosmologists have claimed that gravitational energy is negative, which cancels out other forms of positive energy (such as heat, light, mass and kinetic energy) such that the total energy of the universe is zero. Thus, no energy is required to create the universe, and our universe is the ultimate free lunch. In “A brief history of time” Stephen Hawking made this claim but provided no justification. In “A universe from nothing”, Lawrence Krauss made the same claim and provided a very brief argument based on Newton’s gravitational equations, but Krauss’s argument looks wrong.
I have spoken to a number of physicists on this issue. A few of them have initially affirmed it, but then are unable to say why. I have never heard a plausible explanation. I have no in principle objection to the free lunch hypothesis. I don’t propose to be dogmatic, and am happy to be shown that I am wrong. If it is true, then it could explain what creation ex nihilo actually means. However, “Is the free lunch hypothesis true and can it be justified?” I will present my argument for why I believe it isn’t and you can judge whether I am wrong.
Kevin’s presentation is available on YouTube.
Dr Kevin Rogers is the director of Reasonable Faith Adelaide. After a 40-year engineering career, he was a Research Fellow and lecturer with the University of South Australia.
