Destroying the universe: How hard can it be?

According to an essay on LessWrong, quantum physics may harbor a cosmic threat. We likely live in a false vacuum—a seemingly stable state that could theoretically decay into a deeper, true vacuum. If that transition happened, even as a bubble nucleated through quantum chance, it would expand at nearly the speed of light, rewriting physics and annihilating everything. The Standard Model suggests roughly ninety percent odds we're in this situation. However, deliberately triggering such decay would require engineering a coherent quantum state of Higgs bosons in a space millimeters across. The energy cost would be tiny—less than a kilojoule—yet there's no known way to create that configuration. The essay concludes that even a galactic scale civilization probably couldn't do it, suggesting our cosmos is protected less by distance or improbability than by sheer theoretical stubbornness.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton