“Nothingness gives rise to the universe, and the universe transforms into all things.”
This phrase perfectly explains the origin of the universe. However, in a state of absolute nothingness, where everything is zero, how did the initial universe come into being? This is yet another cosmic-level mystery.
What we can be certain of is that the universe emerged from absolute nothingness, and that the universe exists today. From these two facts, we can infer that there must be some mechanism that governs absolute nothingness and leads to the formation of the universe. What remains uncertain is the nature of this mechanism.
In absolute nothingness, perhaps there is truly nothing. However, due to the violation of parity conservation, slightly more matter was produced than antimatter. Meanwhile, matter and antimatter annihilate each other, releasing vast amounts of energy.
Over the course of countless ages, energy accumulated, grew hotter, and more matter was produced. Finally, around 14 billion years ago, a great explosion occurred.
Before this explosion, the universe was merely a singularity. Even after the explosion, the universe remained extremely small, which does not explain why today’s universe is so vast and seemingly boundless.
If we apply the theory of cosmic inflation, we can better understand why the universe is as large as it is today.
Particles can emerge from energy in the form of particle-antiparticle pairs, but where did the energy itself originate? The total energy of the universe—the sum of positive and negative energy—is precisely zero. All matter in the universe possesses positive energy. Meanwhile, all matter is attracted by gravity. Two masses that are close together have less energy than two that are far apart because energy is required to overcome their mutual gravitational attraction. In this sense, the gravitational field of all matter has negative energy.
The negative energy of gravitational fields exactly cancels out the positive energy of matter, leading to a total energy sum of zero. This explains where energy comes from.
During the inflationary period, both the positive energy of matter and the negative energy of gravitational fields increased exponentially, yet zero multiplied by any number remains zero, ensuring that the total energy of the universe remains zero. During this inflationary phase, the universe expanded by an unimaginably large factor, explaining why today’s universe is so vast and seemingly boundless.
At the same time, in the early moments of the Big Bang, due to parity violation, the amount of matter produced slightly exceeded that of antimatter. Although most matter and antimatter annihilated each other, the remaining matter formed the universe we see today.