Lawrence Krauss wants you to forget everything you think you know about the word "nothing."
In his 2012 bestseller, A Universe from Nothing, the theoretical physicist threw a grenade into the middle of the long-standing shouting match between science and religion. It wasn't just a book about stars. It was an attempt to answer the biggest "why" in human history: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Honestly, the fallout was messy. Philosophers called him names. Theologians felt snubbed. Scientists? They were mostly just excited about the math. But as we sit here in 2026, with the James Webb Space Telescope sending back data that makes our old textbooks look like coloring books, the debate around Lawrence Krauss something from nothing is more relevant than ever.
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The Universe as a Free Lunch
Krauss’s central argument is basically that the universe is the ultimate "buy one, get everything for free" deal.
He leans heavily on the idea of a "flat" universe. In physics, a flat universe has a total energy of exactly zero. Think about that for a second. If you add up all the "positive" energy from matter and all the "negative" energy from gravity, they cancel each other out perfectly.
Zero.
If the total energy of the universe is zero, then you don't need a massive "input" to create it. It can just... happen. Krauss famously quotes Alan Guth, the father of cosmic inflation, who said the universe might be the "ultimate free lunch."
But how do you get the lunch started? That's where the quantum stuff comes in.
In the world of the very small, "nothing" isn't a quiet, empty void. It's a bubbling soup of virtual particles. They pop into existence and disappear in the blink of an eye. This isn't a guess; we've measured the effects of these fluctuations. Krauss argues that if you have a patch of "nothing"—meaning no particles, no radiation—quantum mechanics ensures it won't stay empty for long.
Nothing is unstable.
The War Over "Nothing"
If you want to see a philosopher get really angry, tell them that "nothing" is just empty space.
This was the biggest critique of the book. David Albert, a heavyweight philosopher of science, wrote a scathing review in The New York Times that basically called Krauss’s definition of nothing "pathetic."
Albert’s point was simple: if you have quantum fields and physical laws, you don't have nothing. You have something. You have the laws of physics. Where did those come from? Krauss, in his typical blunt style, basically told the philosophers to get out of the way.
He argued that the definition of nothing should change as our understanding of science evolves. To a scientist, "nothing" used to mean a vacuum. Then it meant the absence of space and time itself. To Krauss, if the laws of physics allow for a universe to spontaneously appear from a state of no space, no time, and no particles, then that counts as coming from nothing.
It's a semantic cage match. You’ve got one side saying, "But who made the rules?" and the other side saying, "Look, the rules show we don't need a Miracle Maker."
Why This Still Matters in 2026
We're currently living in a golden age of cosmology. In early 2026, we’ve started seeing results from projects like SQUIRE and the VENUS program using the James Webb Space Telescope. We’re finding "dead" galaxies like GS-10578—nicknamed "Pablo’s Galaxy"—that stopped forming stars billions of years ago.
These discoveries are helping us map the "dark" side of the universe. Remember, roughly 95% of everything out there is dark matter or dark energy. Krauss’s book was one of the first to really hammer home to the public that we are, quite literally, the 5% "pollution" in a universe dominated by stuff we can't see.
Dark energy is the key here. It’s what’s pushing the universe apart. Krauss points out a dark irony: because the universe is expanding faster and faster, billions of years from now, all other galaxies will have disappeared from view. Future astronomers will look up and see... nothing. They'll think they're alone in a static void.
We are lucky enough to live in the one brief window of cosmic history where we can actually see where we came from.
The Three "Nothings" of Lawrence Krauss
To understand the book, you have to realize Krauss is talking about three different levels of "nothingness":
- Empty Space: Just a vacuum, but still full of quantum "noise" and potential.
- No Space and No Time: A state where the geometry of the universe hasn't even been born yet.
- The Absence of Laws: This is the one he admits we don't have a full handle on. Do the laws of physics exist "outside" the universe, or do they pop into existence with it?
The Practical Side of Cosmic Nihilism
It’s easy to get lost in the "why." But Krauss pushes for a "how" mindset.
When you dig into Lawrence Krauss something from nothing, the takeaway isn't just that God is unnecessary for the math to work. It's a call to embrace the reality of our situation. If the universe is a lucky accident, then our lives are incredibly rare and precious.
We aren't the center of the story. We're the audience.
Critics like George Ellis have pointed out that Krauss doesn't solve the "First Cause" problem. Science is great at describing the mechanism, but it’s still scratching its head at the source. Even so, the book shifted the goalposts. It forced theologians to stop arguing about the "void" and start arguing about the "fields."
Moving Beyond the Book
If you're looking to dive deeper into this, don't just stop at Krauss. The conversation has moved forward.
Check out the "Hubble Tension" research coming out this year. Scientists are finding discrepancies in how fast the universe is expanding, depending on whether they look at the early universe or the modern one. This "tension" might actually reveal new physics that Krauss couldn't have known about in 2012.
Also, look into the "Zero-Energy Universe" hypothesis in academic journals. It’s the formal version of Krauss’s "free lunch" argument.
Actionable Insights for the Curious Mind
- Watch the original lecture: Krauss’s 2009 talk for the Richard Dawkins Foundation is where it all started. It’s arguably more accessible than the book.
- Read the rebuttals: Don't be a one-sided reader. Look up David Albert’s review or Sean Carroll’s blog posts on the topic. It’ll sharpen your understanding of what "nothing" actually implies.
- Track JWST findings: Follow the STScI (Space Telescope Science Institute) updates. Every time they find a galaxy that "shouldn't exist" in the early universe, they're testing the very models Krauss wrote about.
The universe doesn't owe us an explanation. It just exists. Whether it came from a divine spark or a quantum hiccup, the fact that we can even ask the question is the most interesting part of the whole deal.
Next steps for your cosmic journey: Start by exploring the recent data on the "Hubble Tension" to see how our measurements of the expansion rate are challenging the standard model of cosmology. Then, look into the concept of "Quantum Fluctuation" to understand the microscopic "pops" that Krauss claims could have birthed our entire reality.