What is a false vacuum?
A false vacuum is an end-of-universe scenario:
“The possibility that we are living in a false vacuum has never been a cheering one to contemplate. Vacuum decay is the ultimate ecological catastrophe; in the new vacuum there are new constants of nature; after vacuum decay, not only is life as we know it impossible, so is chemistry as we know it. However, one could always draw stoic comfort from the possibility that perhaps in the course of time the new vacuum would sustain, if not life as we know it, at least some structures capable of knowing joy. This possibility has now been eliminated.”— Sidney Coleman and Frank De Luccia, “Gravitational Effects on and of Vacuum Decay” (1980)
“Doomsday scenarios are frequently portrayed in film and literature, but these man-made or natural disasters — ones that wipe out the human race either in the blink of an eye, or over a longer and usually very painful period — pale when considering the ultimate fate of the universe. Doomsday is terrifying because it indulges our anthropocentric selfishness, but comprehending the complete obliteration of the totality of everything — space, time, matter, energy, all governing physical laws — is existential absurdity that the typical inward-looking nihilist cannot grasp. Therefore, it is left to the cheerful among us to look beyond our meager biological form and attempt to comprehend the true meaning of absolutely nothing.”
“FALSE VACUUM: It’s possible that there is a lower energy state than the vacuum of space, which is simply a temporarily stable, local minimum. If a bubble of lower energy was instantiated, our current vacuum might tunnel into it, changing all physical constants, and therefore matter, energy, and space-time. Without warning, all structures could be instantly destroyed.”
— Russell Quinn, “The Ultimate Fate of the Universe” (2011)
