When we look at the night sky, we feel that the Universe has always been there, is here now, and will continue to be there for us… But it is all an illusion. Everything we see depends on one fundamental concept: the quantum vacuum.
This “vacuum” is not really empty, but filled with energy fields. The most important is the Higgs field, which gives mass to particles and suggests that our Universe exists in a metastable state.
We can imagine this state as a ball resting on the slope of a mountain. It may seem stable, but a force strong enough could make it roll into the abyss, altering our very reality at the same time.
Recent research, based on theoretical calculations, reveals that the boson’s mass places our world right on that critical boundary. The current vacuum has a very long lifetime, but…
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Source www.theweather.com
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