A potential physics theory of nothing, and thus, everything. It builds upon of String Theory and M-Theory's work, but starts from nothing. It seems to predict Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and how our multiverse "functions", how universes would begin and end, and more or less everything else.

BraneBender.org

Attempting to explain our universe and multiverse.

These concepts were first developed between 2003-2006 by Andrew Lee Bender,
with later clarifications and/or additions below, with the latest being done in 2024.

A Hypothesis for a Theory of Nothing, and thus, theoretically, everything.

Andrew Lee Bender (andrew at branebender dot org)

Abstract: Proposed is a conceptual revamping of physics from the ground up with a theory of nothing, and thus, potentially, everything. Theoretically, everything must start from nothing, or else it is logically inconsistent, isn't it? Also, relativity and quantum mechanics haven't been able to be combined, and it's been quite some time now, hasn't it? This proposal began with a modification of gravity in M-Theory, but it soon became clear to me that the entire system was built on a lousy foundation, and the only way to rectify the situation was to completely redesign physics from the ground up. The force of gravity would be produced by the curvature of our membrane, which would be caused by the vibrations of individual planck-length membrane vibrations (previously thought of as "strings" of matter), which would vibrate in our three gravity dimensions. Gravity’s weakness would be due to the size of our membrane relative to the Planck length of an individual membrane vibration (roughly 10^-35m in size). In this proposal, a universe would begin as a planck-length sized vibration, and then grow due to the vaccum around it. The forces of electromagnetism and gravity would be equivalent when a membrane begains as a Planck-length disturbance, but as the universe expands towards the size of ours, if it does, the strength of gravity would decrease in proportion to the membrane’s size, which in our case would be a theoretical maximum radius of 526 trillion light-years accross, if our universe ever expanded to its maximum potential size, if it were completely relaxed. This theory allows for a direct method of energy transfer from membrane collision to individual "virtual strings", which, in this proposal, are virtual membrane vibrations present within the membrane during the instant of the collision. These concepts would explain the creation of our universe without a singularity, while not violating itself with infinites, because our universe, and all others, must be finite, or else logically impossible, correct? Dark matter and dark energy would be larger-scale vibrations of our membrane, remaining from the original collision that created our universe. The relaxation of those vibrations (whose potential energy would be converted into kinetic energy over time) would cause spacetime to expand more rapidly as it ages, and to accelerate it's expansion rate until all dark matter relaxes, which would put a stop to the acceleration of the expansion. Additionally, several methods of observational confirmation of this hypothesis are proposed.

M-theory, proposed by Ed Witten, advanced our understanding of string theory by combining the five previous string theories into one nearly all-encompassing theory of our universe. However, this theory leaves a few things lacking. For one, a satisfactory theory of gravity. In M-Theory, gravity is thought to be made of closed-loop strings which can escape our membrane (or "brane" for short), as the closed-loop strings are not attached to our membrane, they would create “disappearing gravitons”, which were supposed to account for gravity's weakness, (according to M-Theory). However, the only way to make this concept "work" is to introduce a highly unlikely parallel membrane from which gravity would leak to our membrane, as Princeton’s Lisa Randall has postulated.¹ This is highly improbable, and seems very unlikely, doesn't it?

M-Theory has highly unlikely relationships between branes, and a lack of explination for their existence in the first place, or their configuration. (Which is kind of critical if one wants to create a "theory of everything", wouldn't one think?) Because of this, a new proposal for physics is likely a good idea. I propose a theory of membrane physics, or possibly even "nothing theory", where membranes arise from noise at very tiny planck-length scales throughout the void of nothing that likely is the multiverse (at least, according to "nothing theory"). Everything has to start from nothing, doesn't it? How could a multivere begin or end, it just has to exist (or not, as the case may be... Doesn't it?) A multiverse can't exist if it requires something to create it, can it? How would it be created? One would need something to do it with, and how would that something exist?

So, from within this nothingness, at very small scales, such as the planck length of roughly 10^-35m, imbalences could be created within this nothingness. These imbalances could lead to disturbances, and these disturbances could interact with each other, and under the proper conditions, they could collide with one another. If they did, they would, potentially, become seperated from their opposite partner, if they collided with a same-shaped disturbance, and become a separate and independent membrane, and hurdle in the opposite direction of the membrane that it collided with. This would create four membranes, two with positive shapes, and two with negative shapes (like a torus and an inverted torus, for example). The branes that collided would both be new universes, and probably have only two opposite-spin electrons created within them by the collision itself, being so small.

According to this proposal for a theory of nothing (and thus, potentially, everything), these tiny universes would grow over time due to the vaccum around them, the longer that they existed for. If the multiverse is, indeed, nothing, then, theorhetically, it must be a vaccum. And, being a vaccum, it should cause the new, tiny membranes (with potentially only two opposite-spin electrons within it) to grow in size over time. In this potentially much larger membrane, which still only has the two electrons vibrating on it's inner and outer surfaces, although, from the electron's point-of-view (if it had one), it might be "inside" of the universe. In "reality," it's actually a Planck-length pimple on one side of the membrane, either on the outside, or the inside of potentially a tarus or anti-tarus shaped brane. These pimple-like vibrations can be created by disturbances in the membrane, creating what we currently call "virtual strings", or "virtual particles". I'll just call them virtual membrane vibrations. According to Brian Greene, Michio Kaku, and other physicists, even nothing is highly unstable on the quantum level. Virtual membrane vibrations are tiny disturbances in our brane generated by quantum noise (instability at very small scales). Every now and then, a disturbance is generated, which creates swirls of both "up and "down" brane vibrations, one vibrating the opposite direction of the other, one on the interior of our membrane, and one vibrating on the exterior of our brane, and both being entangled at the quantum level, because they are the same vibration, and still connected to each other. They must vibrate with the opposite spin of one another, since they were formed from the same disturbance, and are connected through our membrane itself. Therefore, no matter where they roam in our universe, they are still connected. Causing one pimple to change its spin will cause the other pimple to flip its spin, and stick out in the opposite direction from our brane. Virtual brane vibrations exist only for fleeting moments, as they are disturbed into existence by quantum noise, and then merge back into nothingness as their waves cancel each other out (unless, of course, they bump into something else first).

Exactly how would a collision of membranes transfer energy into a new universe? Current theory is not at all clear on this subject, and the result is supposedly a "big bang", starting from a "singularity", which is mathematically impossible. The beauty of nothing theory, is that it does away with any singularities, because the smallest anything can be is the Planck length of 10^-33 cm (10^-35 m), as that is the size of a single membrane vibration. (The Planck length is also the smallest anything can be in standard physics, but that didn’t stop them from trying to create a singularity, apparently...) The core of a smaller type I black hole (what I call a "quark star"), would no longer be a singularity, but an extremely small mass of probably less than a meter, to a few meters across of compactified membrane vibrations. A type II black hole (supermassive) may have a core a few tens of meters across at it's core, or more. Information would not be destroyed within a black hole (as it would be within a singularity, which doesn't exist). Instead, it just sits there until the next membrane collision, or when the universe cancels out. By the way, I'm afraid that Hawking radiation just isn't a thing, either... An event horizon isn't a thin membrane. It's a massive curvature of space, which begins gradually. Either both vibrations will fall down the gullet, or they won't... By the way, we still haven't observed any Hawking radiation yet (go figure).

Singularities are not the answer for either black holes or the beginning of our universe, because they also create nonsensical mathematics, being impossible. After considering how membranes collide and vibrate, it appeared to me that there had to be a direct method of energy transfer from each membrane collision to the new universe at the fundamental level of each individual brane vibration. Brane collisions creating matter within each collided brane seems plausible, as they vibrate on both large and small scales, and are made of the same "substance", with the main brane being stretched out to an enormous degree compared to the individual Planck-length vibrations occurring on their surfaces. If two of these membranes were to collide, the virtual brane vibrations that existed on each brane at the exact moment of impact (it seems that about five percent of our universe was in the process of generating virtual membrane vibrations at the moment of impact) would be vibrated into matter and antimatter. This is possible because the brane vibrations of nothing theory are two-dimensional pimples of our brane itself. When vibrated by a "big bonk" collision of membranes, these pimples will vibrate more violently after they are struck, forming vibrations of matter. Therefore, our membrane now is spacetime itself, at least for this universe... According to string theory, the higher the frequency of a string, the more massive the particle it emulates. This is also true in nothing theory. The more that a Planck-length pimple vibrates, the more energy it has, and the more its vibrations will curve and effect the membrane around it. This would create the forces of gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Of course, the forces besides gravity will require extra dimensions for the pimples to vibrate in, that are much smaller than the three gravity dimensions, and are not currently observable (if they ever will be outside of a computer simulation, being about as small as the smallest particles).

By eliminating the closed-loop strings of M-Theory and replacing them with the simple and straight forward curvature of our membrane caused by the vibrations of brane vibrations of matter, we eliminate the necessity of relying on a contortion of parallel universes to explain the laws of nature. Physics needs to be simple, make sense, and be the result of nothing, or else it wouldn't exist. You can't create the multiverse from something. Where would it have come from? It's the chicken and the egg problem all over again. Simplicity requires that we recognize that the most likely solution is nothing theory, and not an unlikely relationship between "randomly" generated membranes, like in M-Theory, with no real explination as to how that would happen.

In nothing theory, our membrane grew from a quantum noise created Planck length bubble into an enormous three large spatial dimensional brane (with possibly nine total spatial dimensions, not ten as in M-Theory, in order to explain the forces of nature). Each force is described by the brane pimple's vibrations in three dimensions per each force. Three dimensions describe gravity, three describe electromagnetism, three describe the strong and weak nuclear forces, and light vibrates in three dimensions, two gravity dimensions, and one other dimension. The third dimension that light vibrates in could be one of the three of electromagnetism, making nine total spatial dimensions, not ten. The Planck-length bubble universe expanded because of the vacuum around it. Over time, this bubble could expand to the size of a universe such as ours, its surface area expanding inside and out. As it did, the effect of vibrations of standard Planck-length brane vibrations of matter (which curve our brane) would get weaker and weaker the more our brane grew larger and larger, decreasing the force of gravity as the brane grew, and each vibrating pimple curved a smaller and smaller percentage of our membrane.

The rest of our multiverse would be generating more of these multidimensional membranes from the froth of quantum noise at the Planck length, and over time, a vast number of opposite brane pairs would be generated. It is only a matter of time before members of two sets of these brane pairs would collide with one another, seperatng the pairs, creating seperate positive and negative universes, and going their own way. In nothing theory, time is no longer a dimension, but the rate at which individual brane pimples vibrate, which can be reduced depending how much of the universe one drags along with it, for example by traveling near the speed of light, which causes time to slow down from the perspective of the rest of the universe.

In nothing theory, it is simple brane vibrations that create the effect of gravity. Gravitons don't exist. Gravity is not a particle. It's just the curvature of our membrane caused by the brane vibrations of a "particle", curving the brane around it as it vibrates. Gravity waves, however, are large-scale radiating ripples of our membrane itself caused by the rapid movement of Planck-length "particles" which curve our membrane. Their rapid motion creates ripples in our membrane, which creates radiating ripples of it, curving space, and exerting a gravitational force, because they are the curvature of space itself.

According to nothing theory, if we run the expansion of our universe backwards from its current point to the "big splat" itself, the previous theorists simply went too far back and assumed that the universe started from a single, infinitely massive, one-dimensional point before it inflated (which is impossible, our universe is finite). Instead of the singularity of the standard model of the "big bang", nothing theory states that when our brane collided with another one, the energy of its momentum was transferred directly to each membrane that collided in the form of membrane vibrations. These vibrations became both the individual membrane vibrations of matter, and larger-scale dark matter vibrations, as the collision caused each brane to vibrate and contract on larce scales as well as at Planck-length scales. This increased the amount of gravity in our universe, in this case creating "dark matter" as our brane vibrates and contracts due to those vibrations. Additionally, at the moment of impact of the big splat, approximately 4 to 5 percent of the membrane would be in the process of generating virtual vibrations. This would create an outlet other than the brane on the large scale where the energy of the collision could go, vibrating them further into matter and antimatter.

After our brane, and thus our universe, contracted due to the collision, it may have contracted to what could have been hundreds of millions to a billion light years across. (Roughly its size when it emitted the cosmic background radiation.) The universe would have cooled from the hot plasma of the collision and undergone its phase change perhaps just moments after the collision itself, due to its much larger starting size than a stupid, nonexistant "singularity" of the redonkulus "big bang", which never happened.

When two membranes collide, the virtual brane vibrations existing at the moment of the collision would be vibrated further into matter and antimatter. All of the antimatter would be very quickly annihilated, and matter would quickly condense into the first atoms of hydrogen, helium and lithium. If some matter was left over from previous collisions of our membrane (and thus from prior universes), those strings would also be available to be vibrated further into antimatter or unstable flavors of quarks or electrons during the brane collision. They would then "decay" into more stable vibrations. If a Planck-length membrane vibration is violently vibrated, so that its vibrations exceed the Planck length, it is "unstable" (like a Republican), and its vibrations will soon collide with a pair of virtual brane vibrations. When it did, it would give one or both of the virtual brane vibrations more energy, and reduce its own. The violently vibrating pimple would "decay" into "other particles", using "dead physics" nomenclature. This would continue to occur until the "particle's" vibrations no longer exceeded the Planck-length. Then it would become a "stable" quark or electron of matter or antimatter. Both of which are stable brane vibrations (at least until they anniahlate each other by cancelling each other out, creating the most energetic gamma-ray photons. If one member of a virtual pair of brane vibrations is not collided with, it becomes a lowly nutrino, the wimpiest of all particles. (Kinda like Republicans are.)

The major, large-scale, membrane vibrations that act as dark matter, vibrate over vast areas thousands of light-years across and even form dark matter clouds the size of galaxies and beyond. Huge chains of galaxy clusters are created, their matter attracted to these long strands of dark matter webs, and form an enormous lattice of strands following the large-scale brane vibrations. They appear similar to a three-dimensional spider’s web. Membrane gravity would help to explain these huge structures as well, because when our brane collided, due to its large-scale vibrations, a network of large-scale membrane vibrations would form, known as "dark matter".

These vibrations of the membrane itself would cause it to contract quickly into a much smaller apparent volume as the membrane vibrates rapidly. The dark matter generated by these brane vibrations could also cause the gases of the early universe to collapse and form into stars and galaxies earlier than one billion years after the big splat, much more rapidly than the standard model and M-Theory have explained (before including "dark matter" without a comprehensive model for it. Harrumph!). Our universe appears to be expanding "faster than light" due to the relaxation of our brane as our universe expands. It's that our membrane is relaxing its large-scale vibrations, and thus, from our perspective, space is expanding. It may also appear like there was an explosion at the beginning of our universe, but it's actually the result of a contraction and then relaxation. (Childbirth?) This contraction created massive gravitational waves that still reverberate throughout our universe. After the contraction, matter and antimatter condensed, and anniahlated into gamma rays, which have been stretched out into what we see today as the cosmic microwave background radiation.

Fig. 1 (no actual figure, but boy, imagine what it would look like if there was! Of two positive branes colliding...)

As two branes collide, they create “big splats” in/on each membrane. The vibrations would reverberate throughout our brane, creating vibrating ripples of membrane, or "dark matter" throughout the new universe. The vibrations could form a network of dark matter vibrations, which could help to accelerate the formation of stars and galaxies, as the young gases are attracted to these dense vibrating regions of "dark matter". This iteration of our universe would begin at a size much larger than previously theorized, doing away with the screwey concepts of impossible singularities, etc. Therefore, physics would never break down in this model of our universe, (which is kinda necessary, don't you think? Or else it isn't really physics now, is it?...) unlike in the big bang model, where all of physics breaks down before 10^-43 seconds into the expansion from the so-called "singularity". The the universe simply contracts from the impact, and then starts to expand from a size possibly hundreds of millions to a few billion light-years across, which is clearly a guesstimate.

The "gravitons" (tiny gravity waves which begin as Planck-length vibrations of a brane from a collision of matter) radiate according to the inverse square law (GM/r²). Since the dark matter vibrations left over from the big splash are so very, very, big :-), and are confined only by the size of our brane itself, these vibrations will reverberate throughout our entire universe, and will dissapate over time. As our universe appears to expand, (from an internal observer's perspective), the "dark matter" membrane vibrations will slowly be converted into "dark energy" as those vibrations relax and dissipate over time; pushing points that were close together farther apart (see fig. 2). This will happen as the vibrations of our membrane occur less frequently, especially in the “empty” regions of our universe between galaxy clusters.

The expansion of our universe is converting the potential energy of our vibrating membrane (the "dark matter") into kinetic energy (or "dark energy"). This release of stored potential energy pushes our universe apart, accelerating slowly at first, and then increasing in speed until it relaxes towards its maximum potential size, by which point the acceleration will have slowed down, and eventually will really slow down (as poorly illustrated in fig. 2).

Fig. 2. (Again, no actual figure, but imagine if there were! Mabye that's why it's poorly illustrated?) Imagine two mosty relaxed bubbles colliding. Once they did, should both vibrate more intensely? If that happened, would any minor disturbances on the bubbles be vibrated more energetically? In addition, would the bubbles themselves have large-scale vibrations reverberating throughout them? Would those vibrations cause any small-scale vibrations to move closer to each other, or seem to?
After the collision, would these vibrations begin to relax? What effect would that have on the small-scale vibrations? What are Dark Matter and Dark Energy?

Nothing Theory can also help to explain many of the other mysteries of our universe. For example: why is gravity so weak compared to the other forces? And why is so little of our universe’s mass made up of normal matter and energy that we can see? Our membrane began life as a single Planck length bubble. This brane eventually inflated to a much larger size. When our membrane was younger and smaller, its gravitational interactions with strings of matter could have been much more powerful, similar to the electromagnetic interactions of brane vibrations today, which are roughly 10³⁹ times more powerful than the force of gravity.⁴

As our membrane grew from the size of the Planck length to a size larger than a galaxy and so on, its surface area continued to expand. As it did, the effect of vibrations of standard Planck-length brane vibrations of matter got weaker and weaker, as those tiny vibrations stayed the same size, while our brane continued to expand. The gravitational effect of only one pimple of matter, such as a quark or electron, continued to decrease as it had a smaller percentage of the membrane’s surface area to vibrate on, diluting its gravity. When a membrane reaches a size like our membrane has currently, the vibrations of individual pimples of matter have an infinitesimal effect on the tiny percentage of the membrane that they vibrate on. Therefore, according to Nothing Theory, gravity’s weakness should be directly proportional to the size of our membrane.

Because of this, it may be possible to calculate the approximate size of our membrane. One can do this by comparing the strength of gravity to the electromagnetic force (as they should have been comparable when our membrane and a single pimple of matter were of equal size) and then by factoring in the distance that the electromagnetic force acts over. The approximate distance between a proton and an electron in a hydrogen atom (the Bohr radius) is about 5 * 10^-11 m. If we multiply this by the difference in power between the two forces (10³⁹ times), we get 5 * 10³⁰ m. A light-year is 9.5 * 10¹⁵ m, so if we divide our result by the distance in a light-year, we get 5.26 * 10¹⁴ light years or a maximum radius of 526 trillion light-years across (the more accurate the radius of an electron, etc., the more accurate the size). If our universe is at least 93 billion light-years in diameter, as a WMAP science team study found⁵, then our membrane could be nearly eleven thousand times larger than our universe currently appears. As our universe continues to expand, it relaxes out to its maximum current size, and it could be quite a while before it gets there...

Current theory states that the initial conditions of a "big bang" or "big splat" determine all of the physics of the universe created from it. It is currently believed that other universes will all be very different from ours, and that it just happens to be luck that the initial conditions of our universe were so favorable for life. However, if Nothing Theory is correct, all universes created within branes such as ours will have nearly identical laws of physics. Only the strength of gravity will differ, depending on the size of the brane the universe is created within. Thus the smaller the brane, the stronger the force of gravity, and the more powerful the collision that creates the universe, the more energetic the matter and antimatter strings that will be created within it. This also explains why so much more matter than antimatter was created by the big splat, as it takes so much more energy to create antimatter than normal matter.

If a membrane collides more gently than ours did with another one of equal size, less matter and hardly any antimatter could be created within it. If the brane in question were smaller than ours as well, its stronger force of gravity could compensate for the smaller collision to create a viable universe, habitable by creatures like us. If, on the other hand, an enormous brane has a minor collision with another brane, the small amount of matter created (and its weak gravity) would make for a universe of diffuse gas that may never form a single star.

If Nothing Theory is correct, it should be verifiable through observation using several methods. We could calculate the average mass of space in the universe during the first eight billion years of its existence, mostly in the “empty” regions of diffuse gas between galaxy clusters, and compare those results with the average mass of empty space in the universe during the last five billion years. If our results show that dark matter has been disappearing as our universe’s expansion has been accelerating (and thus losing mass during the last five billion years), it would confirm that dark matter and dark energy are two sides of the same coin, as described in Nothing Theory. Gravity would not be leaking from our universe as M-Theory predicts, or originate from a membrane or dimension just slightly away from our own as Lisa Randall postulates. Another method of confirmation would be to measure the diameter of dark matter waves over time. If, the further we look back in time, the smaller the diameter of dark matter waves (vibrations) are, this would further support Nothing Theory.

The energy required to create an electron is much less than the energy required to create a positron, and the same relationship applies to all other types of matter and their antimatter partners. If our universe was created by a collision of membranes which transferred kinetic energy directly to each membrane, and roughly 5 percent of that membrane had virtual brane dimples forming as an outlet for much of that energy, then the ratio of matter to antimatter during the splash should be directly proportional to the amount of energy required to create that matter and antimatter. If the collision imparted its energy directly to the virtual dimples, it should do so according to the laws of physics, and not break down like the "big bang" model does. After the splat, when matter condenses out, the splat behaves similarly to the big bang model, with the same ratios of elements created. Observation supports this. The elements created in the big splat are directly proportional to the amount of energy it takes to create them, supporting this Theory of Nothing.

Because our universe did not begin as a singularity (but appeared to be possibly hundreds of millions to billions of light-years across), the quarks and electrons created in the collision may have condensed really quickly after the contraction. This would mean that the cosmic background radiation may not have been created 380,000 years after the big splat, as is currently thought. Instead, the CBR could have been created very shortly after the splat, and possibly within moments of it, and much more rapidly than the "standard model" predicts. Our membrane appeared to contract to this size after the collision that created it, then appeared to expand from this larger size (relative to a singularity, which doesn't exist, so there!). In Nothing Theory, there was no singularity, and the laws of physics never brake down. Our universe would have rapidly cooled and coalesced from hot quarks and electrons into hydrogen and helium atoms due to the relatively large size of the early universe, compared to the other bullsh*t. This would mean that when we look at the CBR, we could be looking almost directly at an image of the creation of the universe itself, almost immediately after the collision. According to the WMAP science team, our observable universe is roughly 93 billion light-years in diameter after 13.75 billion years of expansion.

Another piece of evidence in favor of Nothing Theory is the Hubble Space Telescope study of 2003 by quantum gravity physicists. They found that the universe is not as “pixilated” as it should appear if spacetime were pixilated at the Planck length of 10^-35m (the smallest anything can be according to physics, as well as the length of a single pimple). Quantum gravity physicists believe that photons traveling through our universe would move from “pixel to pixel” of Planck length segments as they travel.⁶ Images of objects that are farther away should appear pixilated compared to nearby objects as more distant photons travel through more segments of space. However, these results were not found. Photos of both nearby and distant objects appeared equally clear. Instead of casting doubt on the Planck length or other solid physics, it is further support for Nothing Theory, and that photons are not traveling through “pixilated” space. Rather they are traveling accross a perfectly smooth membrane, which would not blur photons in the least.

If one wants to understand physics, they would need to move from a particle-based view of our universe to a membrane and pimple-based view. Researchers are having trouble figuring out dark matter, dark energy, and many other "recent" discoveries because they view our universe as a collection of "particles" within a "vacuum" with “nothing” beyond the edge of our universe. Even M-Theory suffers from this view, as it still does not see our membrane as the source of gravity, with each string currently behaving like a particle in "standard physics". The picture of our universe becomes so much more clear when one realizes that we live within a membrane, whose curvature is the source of our gravitational force. Because of this, all matter and energy are simply vibrating brane pimples, formed from and connected to our membrane, that travel through our brane and whose vibrations generate all the forces of nature that we observe.

Additionally, inflationary models of the big bang had been under tighter scrutiny in recent years as results from WMAP were analyzed, and the results did not quite match predictions. This was a very difficult feat, considering there were so many different inflationary predictions. The inflationary models have many problems, one of which is quite similar to complaints about the first five string theories before they were unified. There were so many different inflationary approaches, with such a wide range of predictions, that it has been suggested that inflation could never be disproved by observation!⁷ Here is another problem with inflationary models: What caused the inflation, and the “bang” in the first place? This question can never be answered with current models, which is very frustrating to say the least. Some physicists seem not to mind being unknowledgeable of what event actually triggered our universe’s creation and expansion. However, it seems vital for any comprehensive theory of our universe to be able to predict how our universe began and how it will end, and frankly, everything in-between, too, because without that, YOU'VE GOT NOTHIN'!

In a Science magazine article by Adrian Cho, the finding by Christoph Adami, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, that quantum entanglement is linked to gravity could be one of the strongest pieces of evidence yet for Nothing Theory.⁸ If two particles such as electrons are entangled, an observer could manipulate one of the pimples, and cause it to spin up. (Electrons have two types of spin: one called "up" and the other, "down".) When the pimple spins up, the observer would know that the other entangled pimple's spin is down, no matter how far away it is. This interaction seems to makes sense with Nothing Theory, because all pimples of matter and energy in our universe are made from our brane. The pimple's gravitational vibrations curve our membrane. Quantum information could only be transmitted or linked if the pimples themselves were connected or linked in some way, as they should be through our membrane, with each pair of pimples being physically connected through our membrane, with one vibrating on the outside of a potentially two-dimensional tarus-shaped membrane, and the other vibrating on the inside, each with opposite "spin". All matter in our universe, and even light itself, (which vibrates in only two of our three gravity dimensions, and one other dimension), is moving accross our membrane, connected to it, and curving it in two of our gravity dimensions. No other theory can yet account for why quantum entanglement would be linked to gravity, including M-Theory, where gravity is not linked to anything, and passes right through our membrane as if it were not even there.

Photons and matter curve our membrane as they vibrate. A photon will curve our brane in the two gravity dimensions it vibrates in. This curvature of our brane allows photons to interact with each string of matter’s curvature of our brane (in all three gravity dimensions). This allows a photon’s wavelength to decrease as it strikes a pimple of matter, transferring some energy to the pimple of matter, through the "boinking" of its dimples, thus conserving energy.

This Theory of Nothing also can explain why E=MC². As a pimple of matter vibrates, it curves our membrane in the three different gravity dimensions. However, when a pimple of matter is converted into energy, the pimple will only vibrate in two of the three gravity dimensions, and another (probably electromagnetic) spatial dimension. Therefore, the string’s energy remains constant as it vibrates in fewer gravity dimensions. E=MC² simply illustrates the conservation of energy as the vibrations of a string in three gravity dimensions are transferred into the vibrations of a string in only two gravity dimensions (and one other) that then travel at the speed of light, being less constrained in that regard.

This theory could also explain why all fundamental brane pimples have two types of spin. When the big splat occurred, the only strings "available" within our brane to transfer energy to were either virtual brane pimples that existed at the precise instant of the collision, or matter or photons remaining from a prior collision. The energy of the collision would have been transferred directly to each pair of virtual brane vibrations through membrane vibrations caused by the big splat. Each pair of strings would have been given the same amount of energy depending on their location within the brane. One pair, if given enough energy to become electrons, would split apart as their electromagnetic vibrations repelled one another, and one of the electrons would spin up, and the other would spin down. This could occur because the waves of each virtual pimple in the pair vibrate on opposite sides of our membrane, and the pair would cancel each other out if they joined back together, had they had not been struck by the big splat, giving them more energy.

(This paragraph is a 2010-2012 update with 2023 clarifications.) Nothing Theory could even explain the so-called "Dark Flow" of our early universe. According to observation, young galaxies in our early universe are rapidly "flowing" in one direction. (With no conventional explination). This would not be surprising, depending on the shape of our universe's membrane. The collision that created our universe created enormous space-curving vibrations of our membrane. If our membrane was in the shape of a tarus (like in fig. 1), when it was struck by another membrane, it would vibrate back and forth, with four areas of extremely increased dark matter at the four "pivot points" of the vibrating doughnut. These four points would be constantly bent back and forth, curving space more there, and creating areas of increased "dark matter". This increase in gravity at those four points in our universe would draw all nearby galaxies in their direction, creating what we seem to be observing as "dark flow".

(The next four paragraphs are a 2012 update, developed 2006-2009,and clarified in 2023.)

If Nothing Theory is correct, then what we really need to know in order to understand it is:
1) How quantum noise works, and creates membranes in a vacuum,
2) How virtual pimples would be created on those membranes, and
3) What happens when those virtual pimples collide with each other, other types of pimple vibrations, or are given energy through a membrane collision.
Everything in our Multiverse can be explained by just these three processes! Every Membrane and its pimples in our Multiverse began life as a lowly virtual membrane or pimple on a membrane. Once we better understand these processes within a Nothing Theory framework, we should be able to truly understand our multiverse and where it came from, and where it's going (mostly...).

Nothing Theory can also explain standard particle physics, but instead actually make sense. For example, when a photon or subatomic particle collides with one of a pair of virtual brane pimples, some of its energy would be transferred to the virtual pimple, giving it energy, as seen in particle accelerators. (But attributed to other crap.) The other virtual pimple, however, since it has no partner left, (and has very little energy), becomes a neutrino (which we can barely detect), and this is why... This means that there are no "messenger particles," just brane pimple collisions with other pimples, virtual or otherwise. Virtual pimples are the answers to almost all of our questions about how physics in this universe works. They were there at the beginning of our universe, when our membrane collided with another, vibrating their virtual pimples into quarks and electrons, and they're the way every new photon and "particle" is collided into existence in places from atom smashers to stars.

One other note on black holes and their information. When black holes evaporate (not due to Hawking radiation, which isn't a thing, by the way... But instead due to... Well, you figure it out...), quantum information would escape. In addition, the next time a membrane collides with ours, black holes would explode, showering their pimples far and wide, which, with the extra energy given to them from the collision, could become antimatter and more energetic matter, much of which could collide and annihilate itself in the next universe created.

According to Nothing Theory, our universe will likely end in "ice", then be reborn in "fire". Because our universe will expand to its maximum size, given enough time without another collision, our universe will end up being a cold, dark place, but any galaxies still remaining in our ancient universe will cling together until near the time our membrane expands back out to its full size, and the galaxies lose any remaining dark matter holding them together. At that point, all of our galaxies will have flown apart, sending their stars out into the universe. The last of the stars will eventually die out, and long after that the remaining black holes will evaporate. And our membrane will be full of nothing but quantum noise (which creates virtual pimples). If it hasn't happened by this point, another membrane should eventually collide with ours again, and this universe will be reborn, starting the process all over again, or get itself cancelled out... It's roughly 50/50 either way :-)

It should also be clear by now that our own universe is finite, not infinite, being contained within a single membrane of which there are a multitude. The multiverse, however, is infinite with all of the consequences thereof. (And please don't ask...)

Thank you for your time.

Endnotes

1. Horizon, “Parallel Universes,” BBC TV, February 14, 2002.

2. Charles Seife, “A General Surrenders the Field, But Black Hole Battle Rages On,” Science 305, no. 5686 (2004): 934-36.

3. Marcus Chown, “Our world may be a giant hologram,” New Scientist, Jan. 15, 2009, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html

4. Los Alamos National Laboratory, The Electromagnetic Force, 2000.

5. David Whitehouse, “Astronomers size up the Universe,” BBC News Online (2004).

6. John Whitfield, “Sharp Images Blur Universal Picture,” news@nature.com, March 31, 2003.

7. James Glanz, “Which Way to the Big Bang?” Science 284, no. 5419 (1999): 1448-51.

8. Adrian Cho, “To Escape From Quantum Weirdness, Put the Pedal to the Metal,” Science 309, no. 5742 (2005):1801.