Hawking Quote:

Maybe it is not possible to formulate the theory of the universe in a finite number of statements. This is very reminiscent of Godel's theorem. This says that any finite system of axioms is not sufficient to prove every result in mathematics.

My additions:

A little known corollary extends this proof to all of unknown physics and it's man made finite system of known equations.

Said another way, man will always, till the end of time, observe physical phenomena he will not have an equation to predict the outcome.

So, there is a "moving upper limit", with time, and proof we will never 'know' it all.

yes, that is basically one things that they are doing in the large hadron collider at CERN.

Thank you for your answer. Can you please recommend specific relevant references?

Dear Mohamed,

Although it is mathematically possible I never heard that mass has been created only from pure energy.

At the hadron collider they are colliding hadrons (Protons). After the collision of 2 protons, mass 2, they measure everything that has been formed by the collision and the result is a mass bigger than 2, what indicates that part of the protons' energies was converted into mass.

So, it proves that energy may be converted into mass in the same way as mass can be converted into energy. Try the links bellow.

'Einstein Was Right: You Can Turn Energy Into Matter' - Forbes

https://www.forbes.com/.../einstein-was-right-you-can-turn-energ...

2014 - Essentially, the equation says that mass and energy are intimately related. Atom bombs and nuclear reactors are practical examples of the ...

Formulas - Convert Mass to Energy - Astronomy Online

astronomyonline.org/Science/MassToEnergy.asp

Physics - Formulas - Converting Mass to Energy. The equation of all equations: Everyone has seen this equation, and everyone knows this is Einstein's famous ...

How to convert energy into mass? according to the formula: E=mc2 ...

https://www.reddit.com/.../how_to_convert_energy_into_mass_ac...

2014 - This actually happens all the time in various nuclear reactions. As referred to in the pair production example, by /u/Mount_Bugatti, some ...

Thank you Jorge for your answer. Are the "2+" mass becomes a single mass? I would like also to know the maximum possible density that can be achieved. Actually, my main question and the subsequent queries are for helping me understand the initial big bang process and its reversal possibility. In addition, I would like to know the starting point of the universe creation; was it a pure energy transformed to mass, or mass/energy hybrid start? To me, the overall topic is an interesting knowledge as my specialization is electrical energy systems. Thank you again for your answer.

Hi again, Mohamed,

Johannes is a physicist. He can better explain to us both about what caused the big bang. What I know, and certainly you too, is that the bib bang's singularity concentrated all mass of the universe. How this is possible I suppose it is not yet perfectly understood.

As long as I know, hadrons like a protons are composed by 3 quarks. And these 3 quarks together have a mass bigger than the mass of the proton it is forming. This means that those 3 quarks lose mass in form of energy to make a lighter proton. This also means that they need this energy back to be formed back, what means that energy must be converted into mass.

I do not know what you call "single mass". If you mean a mass that forms matter, I think the answer is yes and no. As long as quarks form hadrons, they seam to me as being masses that form matter. But if you think that they normally do not exist without forming hadrons, then they're not ordinary mass forming what we normally call matter.

Density is not something we can talk normally. The power, the energies and the form in which such particles seem to exist is not a common physics.

About big bang's reversibility, until now, no one knows. It seems to be dependent on the amount of initial mass and on the energy that was released when the "bang" took place. More recently it appeared to have also a great influence the black matter and energy. To answer the question theses masses and energies must be known and until now we don't know their quantities.

It is said that gravity is in the end the governing force in the universe because the mass is too big. But surely the singularity state is not mass and is not energy as we know them both. It surely is not a hybrid. I would say it is something else.

Maybe Johannes can help from here on.

Thank you Jorge for your impressive answer. I am looking forward to receiving more scientific (non-religious) explanations. I also hope that we get further explanations from Johannes. In addition, I hope to know the probability of the random occurance of the big bang from physical point of view. We, as humans, know that we will reach an upper limit of knowledge, but this limit is undefined yet.

Mass can be created from pure energy. Two colliding photons can produce a particle-antiparticle pair if the energy of the photons at least equals but preferably exceeds the rest-mass energy of the pair. Two photons are required rather than one because momentum as well as energy must be conserved.

Mass can be created from pure energy. Two colliding photons can produce a particle-antiparticle pair if the energy of the photons at least equals but preferably exceeds the rest-mass energy of the pair. Two photons are required rather than one because momentum as well as energy must be conserved. If the energy of the two photons just barely equals the rest-mass energy of the particle-antiparticle pair, they will be created at rest in the center-of-mass frame and due to their contact will reconvert to two photons. If the energy of the two photons exceeds the rest-mass energy of the particle-antiparticle pair, the excess energy will be manifested as kinetic energy of the particle-antiparticle pair, flying off at equal speeds in opposite directions in the center-of-mass frame.

Dear All,

For those who are seeking some reference,

Article Electron positron pair production by photons: A historical overview

Yes, it's true that two photons can produce a electron-positron pair, if their energy is high enough. The pair creation mechanism is also a reason for the "evaporation" of black holes because if a pair is created close enough to the even horizon the antiparticle will leave the black hole while the particle remains (or the other way around). Hence, the black hole loses mass over time and becomes smaller.

@ Mohamed EL-Shimy: Which explanations do you want to get from me? - I mean, what is/are the question/s?

To all contributers to this question, thank you for your answers.

@Johannes, I would to know the probability of the random occurance of the big bang from physics point of view, and the possibility of its reversal in the future.

@Mohamed, I don't really know if there is a way to define the probability of the big bang to happen, as there is not really a phyiscal concept on what was 'before' but I am no cosmologist and maybe someone else can give a better answer than me.

Of course can be reversed. It exists nuclear reactions that needs energy as long as produced ions has higher weight than the input ones.

I'm rewording the question to a proper problem statement, for me to then answer. So, I do not answer the original poster, exactly. Three issues come to mind.

Can energy be used to create elementary particles, like electrons or quarks? Or other fermions? (Creating hadrons comes after creating fermions, I think.)

How many do you want?

To what purpose? What goal?

If the goal is to just "do it", has it already been done? Does nature do it? Does it count if man accelerates what nature does? Fusion is where excess mass energy is ejected from the fused atom by emission of a gamma ray (or other particles). Radioactive decay is an unstable nucleus splitting apart, and the excess binding energy is released in the form of two new nuclei and other particles, that weigh more than the original single nucleus. So, nature does create mass from energy. Is it really that simple?

The proper problem statement is to create fermions, not nuclei. Not knowing the original poster's "goal", or purpose, makes this a light weight answer from me. So far.

Two points.

Take a proton of 3 quarks, and pull on one quark. This pull takes energy. When the quark is far enough away from one of the other quarks, the quark attractive force is strong enough to create a virtual quark, between the two separated quarks. Does this address the creation of a fermion? Nature does this already, as QCD states the nucleus is not made of hadrons, but is a sea of churning quarks, anti-quarks and their force particles. Not hundreds of them, but thousands. At room temperature, not near zero Kelvin (for example BEC).

What about neutron decay into a proton and electron and neutrino? Does the mass of these three particles exceed the mass of the neutrino? (I was too lazy to research the masses.)

Can man accelerate either of these? Is the quark solution really the same as the neutron decay issue?

As I stated, light weight answers, looking at fermion mass creation, as that being the "smallest" amount of mass to make (i.e. neutrino or electron).

What the poster was likely asking, can energy be converted into atoms. Not just hadrons, but atoms. Or maybe just create electrons, which could be used as electricity?

Regarding the big bang, the sombrero potential well solution for the decay of the initial state of the universe provides a probability of decay. Which in our case, is one. Why? We exist, so the decay must have happened.

Also, about the big bang, the lay person explanation is the energy was infinite, located in an infinitesimal point. And this point "exploded" creating protons and electrons. This lay explanation is wrong. Why? Current thinking is the energy was not infinite, just very high. Also, the point had a finite size, just very small.

To go beyond this lay understanding, even the expert understanding, there are two points I wish to raise.

First, if the energy was infinity, and one divides infinity ... by 3 or 10, or 10 to 100 to the 100 power, one still gets infinity. That is, as the singularity of infinity energy expands, the energy density of the expansion remains infinity. The energy density of each point of 3D space would then be infinity. Perhaps this is right? As many QM calculations result in infinity. Only normalization, and renormalization has provided finite answers, ... in some cases.

So, the lay explanation is a white lie, a shorter way to say it, avoiding the stickier issue of non infinite energy type Big Bang. Fine, I can live with that.

Second, according to QM, if enough energy is present, then ALL cases are not just possible, but will happen. According to QM, there are three families of particles. Two families are more massive than the one we observe today. Therefore, the Big Bang would have first created the heaviest family of particles, not quarks and electrons. The heaviest family would over time decay into the second heaviest family, leaving a mix of the two families. Then, some of the second heaviest family particles would decay into the particles called quarks and electrons. Again, a mix of two families would exist at the same time in the universe. Or perhaps all three families still exist. Or all three families exist now? No need for one family to decay into the lighter?

Dark energy is well known to interact only through gravity. Does one family particles interact with either of the other families' particles? Through what forces?

Inquiring minds want to know.

So, the big bang conversion of energy to mass, as I understand the mainstream cosmologists like to explain to the lay, when looked under the hood, at the non lay level, still has holes in it. Holes I have not found addressed by published papers.

So, you want to apply an energy "field" to a localized region of space, and have "particles" pop into exist?

Read up on Casimir effect. Virtual particles created right in front of your eyes. Not just in the lab, but within your home, whenever you press two materials together. Theory states that some of these hang around, not just decaying back to the quantum foam. At least the probability is non zero. Can energy be extracted from this process? Usable levels? Likely not says the man.

Finally, speeding up radioactive decay according to the Canadian scientist whose paper I read, where he reviewed the Japanese spending billions of dollars on Brown's Gas, using it with an positive electric field and heat, to change the rate of decay of nuclear waste, in some cases to zero radioactivity within five seconds. Amazing. Now, the Chinese are doing it, too. While mainstream USA scientist continue to claim it's not possible to speed radioactive decay. I believe the papers I have read. I mention this as part of man accelerating what nature does, as being a possible answer to the original question, creating mass from energy. Input heat, electric field, and decay particles are emitted from the 'waste' embedded in Brown's gas. Mass is created from the excess binding energy.

I am finished typing my light weight answer.

What a wonderful question. Thanks for asking it.

Hi, Mohamed,

Above, you wrote that "We, as humans, know that we will reach an upper limit of knowledge, but this limit is undefined yet."

Do you mean that men's knowledge can only grow until it reaches a limit that cannot be overcome? Or do you mean that our knowledge will develop to higher level like an upper step?

Hawking Quote:

Maybe it is not possible to formulate the theory of the universe in a finite number of statements. This is very reminiscent of Godel's theorem. This says that any finite system of axioms is not sufficient to prove every result in mathematics.

My additions:

A little known corollary extends this proof to all of unknown physics and it's man made finite system of known equations.

Said another way, man will always, till the end of time, observe physical phenomena he will not have an equation to predict the outcome.

So, there is a "moving upper limit", with time, and proof we will never 'know' it all.

Virtual particle/anti-particle pairs are created from vacuum energy in many astrophysical phenomena - it's one reason that black holes are capable of losing energy as Hawking showed if one of the pair moves inside the event horizon and the other doesn't and escapes.

Hello Jorge,

When I wrote my statement, I intended the first meaning you mentioned; however, since the global limit cannot be defined, I also agree with the second meaning you mentioned. Otherwise, all specializations will eventually settle. Of course, the knowledge and experience evolve and escalate. Therefore, your second meaning is more practical, or at least motivating.

Theoretical difficulties of the big bang theory are pertaining the following three assumptions:

1. Formation of the the tiny black hole (singularity) with infinitely high density of pure energy. This defies all the existing scientific laws. I think it is impossible before the scientific laws "expired"; for the sake of that, we must assume that all the scientific laws "expire" before the formation of the singularity, but how can this be realized?

2. Pure energy can produce various kinds of basic elements: H, He, Li, Be...How can all these be formed by only photon cllisions?

3. After the big bang, scientific laws become active again. Now the problem is what laws were in action during the big bang?

In Genesis, every thing began from a water like primitive substance. In ancient Chinese classics, Tao and the primitive substance co-existed, and it was Tao (The Great One) who operated the primitive substance (the Chaos, the One) to generate the ten thousand things (heaven, earth, stars, plants, animals and human).

In ancient cosmological theories, both Tao and matter are a priori. The law of matter conservation are valid. This seems to have avoided the difficulties confronted in the big bang theory.

Personally, I don't think energy (in any form) can exist independently. It's always a form of heat transfer between a system and it's surroundings. No substances can change to energy completely at a time, and vise versa no pure energy can change to substance 100%.

Hi, Lian,

don't you think that CERN has already proved the opposite of what you believe?

Greetings

" This question assumes that matter and energy are two distinct 'things', whereas I would say that they are just two different ways of describing some aspect of reality (whatever that is!).

The trouble with trying to talk about these questions is that our languages have developed to talk about medium sized 'things' moving fairly slowly in a uniform 'space' over a short period of 'time'.

The more we look into it though, the more it is like looking at the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. Just when you think you've seen it, it disappears. "

As stated by Pat Rye on Apr 7, 2015.

Quoted from https://www.quora.com/According-to-e-mc2-how-can-I-make-matter-from-energy

Thank You

Dear Lian Cheng Wang,

The Islam also confirms that the begging of creation of living creatures was based on the water. On the other hand, the creation of the universe was like the opening of a flower i.e it is conceptually close to the description of the big bang. The Islam also mentioned that everything will be collected again at the end of the current universe(s). My question is mainly for helping me to understand the level of advances in physics in the regards of energy and mass transformations. The question didn't aim to either prove or disprove or judge the statements of any religion in this regard. As you mentioned, the current physics law are all based and derived from the humans inspection of the current 'structure' of the universe, but humans are always trying to understand the real beginning, and ending scenarios. Thanks for your answers.

Dear Jorge Costa-de-Moura,

The CERN device involves mainly collisions of particles (mass/matter) accelerated by adding energy for discovering new particles. It's not like a process that profiles the beginning and ending scenarios of the universe. In CERN, both energy and matter are present at initial state and final state.

In the big bang theory, however, mass annihilation and its re-formation were assumed, which means that in the black hole, high-density pure energy and zero-mas exist, but right after the big bang, the energy transforms into masses and releases energy at the same time.

I suspect the reasonability of the singularity assumption and the way of the energy-matter transformation. So I don't think that CERN can be compared with cosmological process.

@Mohamed: You write:

My question is mainly for helping me to understand the level of advances in physics in the regards of energy and mass transformations.

And I reply:

First, I review what every day transformations occur in front of you, inside you, and are fundamental to life, as modeled with the academic field of physics. Then, I speak to advances in physics of "transformations."

Energy and mass transformations happen everywhere, every split second. It is the stuff that "life" is made from. Without these transformations, there would be no motion, no time, and 3D space would be frozen, fixed in place.

What transformations?

For example, an atom emitting a photon. The electron orbital decays to the ground state, and the potential energy stored in the partially ionized electron is converted to a particle, a photon.

A photon strikes an orbiting electron, and partially ionizes it. The photon disappears, it's stored particle energy is converted to move the orbiting electron into a higher orbit or energy state.

Without these two reciprocal transformations, life would not exist. The force particle, the photon, between two charged particles, is key to life.

There are many other such transformations in day to day living, equally key to life.

Regarding advances in understanding those transformations, for example, the delta time it takes for an electron to absorb a photon, and then the time it takes that electron to change it's orbital shape, are now being investigated. That is just one such area of study.

The "delta time" it takes for an energy/particle transformation, I feel is a huge growing field, super important, one I would advise following, and making a career from.

The "raw" form of your question, a man made attempt to transform energy to particles, for man to create a machine that makes particles, was my first interpretation. My second, this post, I feel is not likely to answer your question either. I hope my post broadens the reader's perspective on the huge breathe of Mohamed's question. And it's great importance for the future.

Thanks Peter Benjamin for your scientifical and philosophical answer.

The delta times of the stages of photon caused electron ionization being measurable are the next step in writing a mathematical model of how an EM waveform particle does the transition to energy. Never before has there been a method that scientists can use to "see" these stages, and thus with the experimental data points, start writing the math for the stages. That is a big advance in the physics of transformation. It takes QED to the next level. For QCD it would be electron or photon/gamma capture by the nucleus, or emission, thus creating a finer understanding of fusion, fission and decay processes.

Is the photon emission process the exact reverse of the photon ionization?

Is electron capture the exact reverse of beta decay?

If yes, then quantum mechanics has a 'time' reverse process, that looks the same no matter which direction time is going. If no, then new physics has been discovered.

The electron is so very important to mankind, and is so poorly understood, even with the great abundance of both theory and experimental data.

Being able to create electrons from energy, would be big in electricity generation. One might think it is even carbon free. Aim two .511 Mev photons at each other, and their collision creates an electron and anti-electron, whose conserved momentum indicates a voltage difference, that might power a load. I mention this due to Mohamed El-Shimy's vocational direction. There are other means of power generation, other than creating electrons out of energy, that he likely is looking into. I thought I would mention this one, as the world might need such. I wonder what the back of napkin voltage differential is, and if the input energy to this "system" is less, especially how much less, thus making it viable source of electricity.

The next question is how to aim such photon beams, to create a billion, or a trillion, collisions per second. And then, design the geometry of the "collector" of the newly created electrons and send them into a wire, while holding the anti-electron for their eventual destruction upon the return of the wired electron, to complete the circuit. Or would direct electricity be too hard, and instead have coils collect the particles' kinetic energy? Thus, the destruction can be immediate, with no need to 'store' dangerous anti-electrons (dangerous due to their huge charge).