It is a general belief that a person cannot create something without anything. However, the physics of our universe may not have such a precise and clear structure. In fact, scientists have spent decades trying to force matter to emerge from utter non-existence. And now they have indeed demonstrated their ability to create matter out of nothing, by proving that a theory shared 70 years ago is true.
The universe consists of several different conservation laws. These laws cover energy, charge, momentum and so on. In their quest to fully understand these laws, scientists have spent decades trying to figure out how to form matter. This is a far more complex feat than it seems. We’ve managed to make matter invisible before, but creating it out of nothing is something else entirely.
There are many different theories about how matter can be created out of nothing, especially as quantum physicists try to better understand the Big Bang and what could have caused it. We know that the collision of two particles in empty space can sometimes cause additional particles to appear. There are also theories that a sufficiently strong electromagnetic field could create matter and antimatter out of nothing.
However, achieving any of these seemed impossible. That didn’t stop scientists from trying, though, and these studies now seem to be working. As Big Think reports, in early 2022 a group of researchers created electric fields strong enough in their lab to level the unique properties of a material known as graphene.
With these fields, the researchers were able to make it possible for particle-antiparticle pairs to form spontaneously out of absence. This proved that it is indeed possible to create matter out of nothing, a theory first proposed by Julian Schwinger, one of the founders of quantum field theory.
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