How Vacuum Decay could Destroy the Universe

I’ve looked at some of the scariest things in the universe, from black holes, to Thorne-Zytkow objects to Magnetars, but the horror of these things all pale into insignificance when compared to the innocuously titled vacuum decay. Let’s find out more.
If quantum tunnelling occurred with the Higgs field this would create a little bubble of universe where the Higgs field was at a lower energy level and therefore more stable. This bubble of stability would then cause the universe around it to undergo the same change and so on. This bubble of stability would expand throughout the universe at the speed of light, and this would not be good, well certainly not for us.
This change to the Higgs field would change the laws of physics, we don’t really know what effect it might have but since the Higgs field affects the mass of particles, it may affect that. It might be something fairly minor in universal terms such as changing the mass of the neutrino but it might affect the mass of other fundamental particles. It may mean that protons and neutrons are no longer able to hold themselves together in the nuclei of atoms or even the protons and neutrons themselves may fall apart.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:39 What are fields?
2:26 What are particles?
2:55 Particles and fields
4:14 Particles and antiparticles
4:41 The Higgs Field
5:24 Fields and Energy
6:15 False Vacuums
7:45 Quantum Tunnelling
9:14 Vacuum Decay

Credits
Article containing the graph
Iron filings and magnet photo

[RB-fphn]

This is the best definition of a "particle" I have ever seen. Absolutely amazing work!!

[fitnessoni]

Out of all the ways the universe could end I would prefer this. You would never see it coming

[emilyofjane]

I once stumbled across a Wikipedia article titled “The Big Slurp” and it freaked me out for ages. This video basically broke down the entire concept and made it much more digestible — and, you know, less panic-inducing. Thank you.

[Turboy]

The presumed capacity of Strange Quark matter to convert any matter it contacts to Strange Quark Matters is the scariest thing I've ever heard of. Compared to that, even Magnetars and Black Holes are positively comforting thoughts.

[nickysagan]

I wonder if the big bang could just be the higgs field going to a more stable energy field

[retvik]

I've watched and read quite a bit about vacuum decay but you explained it nice and clearly, thank you.

[magnushorus]

these are some of the best things youtube has ever offered... thank you for taking the time to make these!

[prototropo]

I'm not going to worry about Higgs Field stability, except for all that time I wasted on homework.
But this video had a miraculous side-effect: it contained, like the excitation of some epistemological particle field, the best explanation of sub-nuclear particles and their relationships, ever to see the light of pixellated reality. Thanks, Learning Curve!

[ophionnox]

I have always struggled with quantum mechanics and science in general. You actually made me understand something. It's a lot more interesting when you understand it.

[spudhead]

It's kind of comforting that we'd never see it coming and it'd be all over in a fraction of a second. Of course the event that spawned the expanding bubble would actually be in a super position until the sphere of influence reached us, it's only at that point the event would occur or not occur in the past. Depending on your interpretation of quantum physics we'd simply carry on in a realm where the event never took place meaning it'd never actually happen from our perspective. Things would get a little more complex if we ever developed FTL space travel though.

[fastan]

Straight to the point and clearly explained such a complex subject - thank you!

[meaningoftheunicorn]

When the last black hole has evaporated and there isn't anything to "hold up" the Higgs field in its metastable state could the collapse of the false vacuum lead to another big bang? Amazing video...

[Tentites]

So you'd need an excitation of the Higgs field sufficient to get it out of that trough and black holes haven't manage to do it yet, so that must be an incredibly stable metastable state all things considered.

[EvilSnips]

Thank you for explaining these technical concepts in a communicable way, but also giving extra information for those who wish to dive deeper! I rarely see this in Cosmology/Particle Physics Youtube.

[QuantumDivergence]

The depictions and analogies in this video are absolutely perfect. I have never seen complex ideas explained so simply and clearly. Respect. WELL done.

[eswn]

So that's why photons have no mass... I've been wondering about that for ages! 🤔
Well done!

[paulmichaelfreedman]

If it happens, I am reassured none of us would ever realize anything, one moment we're there, the next we're not. Painless and silent.

[robinchesterfield]

I've always found this concept freaky but interesting, and you explained it really well here. The "it could be expanding from so far away we wouldn't know" thing gives me an interesting idea for a eons-spanning, high-concept sci-fi story: 1) Empires rise and fall, species evolve and die, entire stars are blown up in epic wars...in a universe _that is ALREADY DOOMED_, but none of these people know it.
(Possible ending: The vacuum-decay wave engulfs every star system, planet, galaxy, empire, ship and person ever mentioned in this story before they even see it coming and even though they tried so hard and came so far, in the end, there isn't even matter...)

2) Okay, so, if the expansion of the universe might be going fast enough to keep the part that's being vacuum-decayed constantly away from us...does that mean that "What's outside the observable universe?" doesn't matter AT ALL, because, there _isn't_ anything outside what we can see? Because vacuum decay is constantly destroying it. Like, in the time it takes someone to wonder what a galaxy far enough away to be outside our bubble of knowledge is like, that galaxy has stopped existing. (This would mean that spooky-scary dark energy would actually be saving our butts.)

(Edited because I got the song lyrics for my dumb joke in the wrong order.)

[X-Gen-]

This is also referred to as a phase transition. Btw when you were talking about the higgs field potentially falling to its vacuum state I got a mental visual of Egon Spengler saying Don't cross the streams. It would be bad. lol

[nuudlz]

The way you explained fields and particles in this video is the best I've ever seen!