The Vacuum States question

[Bounty]

There is a short story by Geoffrey Landis called Vacuum States. The story itself isn't that important; it is simply setup for a question, and I'm curious what the answer here would be.

You are standing by a counter that is seconds away from finishing a countdown. When the timer runs out an experiment will start. You have your hand on a switch, which when pulled at any point before the timer runs out will abort the experiment.

The experiment will attempt to extract energy out of a vacuum state. You are told that there are two, and only two, possible outcomes of the experiment. Either:

• It is possible to extract energy safely, providing humanity with an infinite source of energy, effectively granting the human race immortality and the ability to explore the universe;
  
  or the attempt to mess with the vacuum causes the entire universe to collapse.

If you abort the experiment, it is highly unlikely it will be attempted again. The cost of running the experiment even once is astronomical and the scientists who have set it up are unwilling to try it again, instead relying on your judgement to either let the experiment run or abort it.

Two seconds on the clock. What do you do?

[Resinence]

Assuming the chance of either outcome is 50%, since you didn't specify, let it run. Staying in this solar system means we are doomed eventually, a chance at raping physics infinite energy? Besides, unless we are the first species in the entire universe to reach such a level of development (which admittedly may be true), it will probably have been attempted before without the universe ending.

Having more time to think now, I would not let it run, since I have no right to make such a decision on behalf of the entire human race or other sentient species should they exist somewhere while being so uninformed on the actual chances of success, but my snap decision in 2 seconds would be to jump at the chance for infinite energy.

[Serafina]

If there are no other variables than those you told me (i am tossed into the situation with only this information), i will assume that there is next to no chance to the universe blowing up - otherwise, no sane scientist would have allowed such an experiment.

And even if we assume a fifty/fifty-chance: somewhere, sometime, an alien species will conduct exactly the same experiment - if it blows up the universe, there is no hope anyway and no point in aborting it.

[Kuroneko]

It is simply not true that if someone has tried it before, we would know about it, because there is no such thing as an instantaneous universally global effect. We would only need to be the first within our Hubble volume. Actually, not even that--the catastrophic results of the hypothetical alien experiment could be approaching us right now, and we'd have no way to know it.

The only way that we could get energy out of the vacuum is if our vacuum is a supercooled state and the experiment intends to induce a phase transition to the true vacuum (or at least another metastable vacuum of lower energy). The obvious problem being: how does it stop? Because is the contraption has some way to destroy the true vacuum, then energy-wise it's a break-even at best. And if not, then the phase transition spreads to all of space.

To make sense of the hypothetical large positive output is that the device produces energy in one form and takes it in some cheaper form in a way that keeps the true vacuum from growing (e.g., it functions as a convoluted matter-to-energy converter). That's quite incredible already, since it should grow at lightspeed, but it also means that any malfunction or even the tiniest of hiccups would be catastrophic.

[Twoyboy]

To try an answer as honestly as possible, I made up my mind in just a few seconds. I said let it run, because the positive side is tremendous, and the downside wipes out everything, so I won't have to live with the consequences... But seriously, I very briefly mentally linked this situation with the LHC and decided the negative side was a very small, almost negligible, possibility.

But thinking about it, there's NO grounds to do this. The experiment we are given has NO detail attached, and it's so far removed from any situation in real life that I don't think you can seriously equate it to that. So, in hindsight I assume the chance of failure is not negligible and I really wish I hadn't have let it run. I think the world is ticking along ok, and it's an awful lot more to lose than to gain.

Unless of course I was right. Then I take full credit.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah.

The scenario as presented is so vaguely defined that whether or not you go through with it depends almost entirely on your own working assumptions.

If the "risk" of a false vacuum catastrophe is like the "risk" of the LHC creating a black hole and destroying the Earth (nonexistent, but now running around the Internet as a meme because some random fool decided to assert that it was possible without doing the math right), I'm for it. If the "risk" is nontrivial, in the sense of "we honestly see no reason to assume it won't happen, and some things we already know indicate that it should happen," the experiment should never have been attempted in the first place.

Instead, we should have tried to do more research by other means in hopes of getting more insights into the nature of vacuum energy first.

[Kuroneko]

But thinking about it, there's NO grounds to do this. The experiment we are given has NO detail attached, and it's so far removed from any situation in real life that I don't think you can seriously equate it to that.

In the details, sure. In qualitative respects, not really. Unless we're just plain throwing out conservation of energy, this means that the vacuum has a lower-energy state compared to what we ordinarily think of as vacuum, and since it didn't undergo a phase transition already, our vacuum must be metastable. Making analogous behavior in ordinary materials is pretty trivial--e.g., just microwave distilled water in a smooth enough container. Or:

In the hypothetical, we could just say "so much the worse for conservation of energy", but since that's not an explicit part of the scenario, I wouldn't assume that at all.

[Simon_Jester]

The real question is whether you can extract the energy from a small volume of vacuum without releasing the energy from its surroundings. With things like a supersaturated acetate solution (which is what's really happening in the "hot ice" referenced above), that isn't possible. For all I know, it might be possible to do that with a false vacuum, though. Hypothetically. I think.

[Junghalli]

My first instinct is to assume 50/50 chance for the different outcomes. Assuming 50/50 chance that the experiment will result in the destruction of the universe I pull the plug on it. We'll probably have cheap energy from fusion and immortality in a couple of centuries at most anyway, and the success of the experiment would only benefit us whereas its failure would possibly also destroy vast numbers of other intelligent species. The benefits simply aren't worth the risk in my view.

I let it run if the risk is so low as to be practically negligeable.

[Darmalus]

I let the experiment run. If I have chosen correctly, we have an energy rich future ahead! If I am wrong, well, I'm not going to have more than a few fractions of a second to regret my decision.

[Narkis]

I let it run. If an experiment with such an absurd price tag has been funded to completion, then more than one people who (presumably) know more that I do have made the same decision. I choose to trust them. If this example is altered to become an act of Q, however, and no other non malicious intelligence has been involved in it's conception, then I would kill it. A 50/50 odds aren't good enough.

[Kuroneko]

The real question is whether you can extract the energy from a small volume of vacuum without releasing the energy from its surroundings. With things like a supersaturated acetate solution (which is what's really happening in the "hot ice" referenced above), that isn't possible. For all I know, it might be possible to do that with a false vacuum, though. Hypothetically. I think.

That's doesn't make much sense. Any true vacuum region would be connected to our false vacuum--much more so than the molecules in metastable liquid. Even worse, since the possibility of energy extraction means that the vacuum has a lower energy state, beyond some critical size it will always be energetically favorable for it to grow. Below such a size, they would collapse on their own, but then it wouldn't give us any energy.

[bilateralrope]

If you abort the experiment, it is highly unlikely it will be attempted again. The cost of running the experiment even once is astronomical and the scientists who have set it up are unwilling to try it again, instead relying on your judgement to either let the experiment run or abort it.

Two seconds on the clock. What do you do?

Given the price of the experiment, why is my hand on the kill switch ?

I can't see any answer that doesn't involve me supporting the experiment. So I will let it continue unless something unexpected happens before the timer hits 0.

[Simon_Jester]

The real question is whether you can extract the energy from a small volume of vacuum without releasing the energy from its surroundings. With things like a supersaturated acetate solution (which is what's really happening in the "hot ice" referenced above), that isn't possible. For all I know, it might be possible to do that with a false vacuum, though. Hypothetically. I think.

That's doesn't make much sense. Any true vacuum region would be connected to our false vacuum--much more so than the molecules in metastable liquid. Even worse, since the possibility of energy extraction means that the vacuum has a lower energy state, beyond some critical size it will always be energetically favorable for it to grow. Below such a size, they would collapse on their own, but then it wouldn't give us any energy.

I don't know enough about the physics behind speculations about false vacuum to know.

If a false vacuum state cannot be collapsed without triggering the collapse of its surroundings, as you say must necessarily be true, then the experiment is suicidal idiocy and should never have been allowed to proceed this far, I agree. As Narkis implies, it's unlikely that anyone would have built the thing if they didn't expect to be able to extract vacuum energy from a small region without triggering a collapse beyond the region the device is operating in. I would insist on seeing their math before being put in this position.
__________

Whoever set this up didn't tell me enough information; I'd be inclined to pull the switch until I got that information. I have no idea whether I'd think all this through in two seconds, though, so the experiment might very well end up running anyway.

[Formless]

Even ignoring the possibility of a Catastrophic Vacuum Collapse(TM), I still wouldn't let it continue. If its truly infinite energy (the kind that ignores conservation laws), is it really worth it? How much energy are we talking? Can the equipment even handle the amount of energy created? What is limit on the hypothetical vacuum-to-energy conversion? Even if the vacuum state does not permanently collapse * or become a runaway chain reaction of some sort, there is still a risk of the experiment simply exploding and giving us no useful information. With only the information available to me as per the OP, simple risk-benefit analysis tells me that there is no way ethically I can allow this experiment to get off the ground let alone to the point of having to push the kill-switch.

* I'm curious though, after the energy dissipates from the vacuum collapsing to a more stable energy state, would it be possible for matter as we know it to exist? What might such a collapsed vacuum look like, and how would it change the nature of space? I expect I won't get an answer to any of these questions (since thankfully no one has done such an experiment), but the sci-fi fan in me can't help but wonder...

[Twoyboy]

In the details, sure. In qualitative respects, not really. Unless we're just plain throwing out conservation of energy, this means that the vacuum has a lower-energy state compared to what we ordinarily think of as vacuum, and since it didn't undergo a phase transition already, our vacuum must be metastable. Making analogous behavior in ordinary materials is pretty trivial
...
In the hypothetical, we could just say "so much the worse for conservation of energy", but since that's not an explicit part of the scenario, I wouldn't assume that at all.

Yes, fair enough, the laws of physics can be assumed and thus, if what you say is correct (in all honesty, I don't understand it) then the risk of catastrophic failure really is too high.

However, could you determine this in 2 seconds? What would your reflex reaction have been?

If this were a Q scenario and we'd really been dropped in it, I think most people's real reaction would be to panic and stop it or panic and freeze... either way with very little thought process. But that's not as interesting to discuss.

[Kuroneko]

What is limit on the hypothetical vacuum-to-energy conversion?

It's... pretty arbitrary, because we don't know the model used in the hypothetical. But the ΛCDM cosmological model fixes vacuum energy as on the order of a nJ/m³. There is no apparent reason why more energy couldn't be extracted, but if so, the result would be a negative energy density, leading to exponential internal collapse but hyperbolic outward growth.

I'm curious though, after the energy dissipates from the vacuum collapsing to a more stable energy state, would it be possible for matter as we know it to exist?

I'd say probably not, but I'm not competent enough to say how.

What might such a collapsed vacuum look like, and how would it change the nature of space?

A space of constant negative vacuum energy would be an anti-de Sitter space.

However, could you determine this in 2 seconds? What would your reflex reaction have been?

Determine it rigorously? No way. But my reflex reaction would definitely be "this is a really bad idea", for pretty just those reasons.

---

That would make an interesting story in itself: assuming that we've strong reason to believe that the physical constants stay the same (which I'm not sure about) and the device brings brings the vacuum energy closer to zero rather than into the negatives, even a runaway reaction would be survivable. It would generate energy in an indirect sense--by filling space with energy on the order of nJ/m³, which is comparable to the bulk matter density of the universe, which, depending on the mechanism, might coalesce into new stars and galaxies. If you're in the far future facing heat death, that might be a pretty good deal (as a positive side effect, cosmic expansion would be slowed, because it's driven by a positive vacuum energy).

[Darth Yoshi]

In all honesty, I'd probably freeze up in this situation, and by the time I'm able to think again, the timer will have run out and the experiment will be underway. However, since that's just not very glamorous, I'll instead say that I let the experiment run for SCIENCE!

[loomer]

When I hear a 'the universe may end, by the way' clause I tend to immediately begin swearing and saying no. Especially if it doesn't have a chance in front of it.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. It's one thing if the claim "this might end the world/universe" is simply a lie or a mistake, as is the case with the LHC. It's another matter entirely when we're talking about something that we have reason to believe would mean the end of the universe.

[Bounty]

The point of the exercise is that, in the hypothetical, there is no way to say which way the experiment will go at all; all that matters is the risk vs reward, and how an outsider (ie, someone not invested in the experiment) would weigh those up.

[Simon_Jester]

The point of the exercise is that, in the hypothetical, there is no way to say which way the experiment will go at all; all that matters is the risk vs reward, and how an outsider (ie, someone not invested in the experiment) would weigh those up.

With unknowable probabilities, there can be no rational course of action. No situation can be accurately represented by knowing the best and worst possible outcomes unless the probability of those outcomes is also known, or at least estimable.

My irrational course of action is to shut the thing down, because of the way some jackass decided to put me in charge of the decision. But they didn't even tell me that the experiment might kill me, and everything I care about, until two seconds before the fact.

Serves them right to have their experiment shut down. Maybe next time they won't be so damned high-handed about it.

[Hawkwings]

I allow the experiment to run. Depending on how quick I am, I may yell "for SCIENCE!" triumphantly as the countdown reaches zero.

I also go with the camp of "These scientists know what they're doing" and not believe that the chances are 50/50. Of course, all this depends on context too. If I was previously kidnapped, brought to the lab which features mad scientists with stereotypical hair, victorian steampunk machines and Frakenstein's monster standing in the corner, I just might abort.

[Simon_Jester]

I know scientists well enough to be reasonably confident that they built the device in good faith, expecting it to work... but I also know scientists well enough to want a decent explanation of why they expect it to work before they ask me to make a decision that will kill me if I was wrong to trust them.

[Kuroneko]

I see no reason to suppose that the prior probability is 50/50. I would normally say that it's more likely that the chances of failure are greater than half, based on analogous behavior of things we do experience. But suppose that just isn't the case. Just because the experiment will be successful doesn't mean the devices built on the same mechanism will be safe, since it only takes one bad malfunction to ruin everyone's day. That's not part of the hypothetical, but then neither are the motivations and competence of the scientists or your hypothetical background and relationship to the experiment. And it seems to me a much more reasonable concern: while I can hypothetically assume some contraptions that keep the device very safe, that a vast energy economy built on the same mechanism experiences not a single catastrophic failure, ever, stretches credulity beyond its breaking point.