Paul Davies writes: "Quantum physics and the so-called inflationary Universe scenario give a plausible account of the initial conditions, that is, of how the expanding Universe originated from nothing" (Letters, 23 September). I can't help feeling this is just a mite over-optimistic.
Big bang cosmologists confidently inform us that it was the big bang which created space and time, matter and energy, that the Universe sprang causelessly and without reason - from out of Absolutely Nothing. They then take a short breath and go on to tell us that this particular sort of Absolute Nothing consisted of virtual quanta fluctuating in a false vacuum. If there were preexisting quanta, virtual or actual, in a pre-existing vacuum, false or true, then there was space and time, matter and energy, in some form or other.
Many cosmologists write about what they call the "creation" of the Universe without really describing the creation ...
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