Why is there something rather than nothing?

Something




Something else

***

What Is Nothing? 

A Mind-Bending Debate about the Universe Moderated by Neil deGrasse Tyson

"You can't assert an answer just because it's not something else."

Isaac Asimov -- sage of science,champion of creativity in education, visionary of the future, lover of libraries, Muppet friend -- endures as one of the most visionary scientific minds in modern history. Every year, the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, of which Asimov had been a tenacious supporter, hosts the Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, inviting some of the greatest minds of our time to discuss monumental unanswered questions at the frontier of science. The 2013 installment explored the existence of nothing in a mind-bending conversation between science journalist Jim Holt, who has previously pondered why the world exists, theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, who has explored the science of "something" and "nothing," Princeton astrophysics professor J. Richard Gott, NYU journalism professorCharles Seife, and Stanford physicist Eve Silverstein, moderated by none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson. The wide-ranging conversation spans such subjects as quantum mechanics, space-time, black holes, and string theory.

The soundbite of the night comes from Tyson himself, in answering an audience question about science vs. religion -- which is really a meditation on the fundamentals of critical thinking and what science is:

There can be alternatives that are not always religious. That's an interesting false dichotomy that's often set up: If it's not this, it must be religious. No: If it's not this, it could be other stuff you haven't thought of yet. You can't assert an answer just because it's not something else. That's a false argument that's been made throughout time, and the better scientists that move forward never assume anything just because one thing is wrong.

Complement with what it's like to live in a universe of 10 dimensions and John Updike on why there is something rather than nothing.