The Universe Could Exist for Trillions of Years — or Disappear in a Nanosecond 0 6

If you are confident that the Universe will exist forever — or at least for an incredibly long time — it may be time to reconsider your views. Data obtained from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and experiments in 2024–2025 suggest that the Universe may be in an unstable state, which physicists call metastable or "false" vacuum, that could collapse at any moment. If this happens, familiar reality would cease to exist instantly. We explain why physicists talk about "bubbles of new physics" and whether we should be worried about collider experiments.

The history of this issue transitioned from theory to practice in July 2012. At that time, scientists at the LHC announced the discovery of the Higgs boson — a particle responsible for mass in the Universe. This was a triumph for science but brought with it alarming news. For physicists, it was important to measure the exact mass of this particle. It was found to be about 125 GeV (giga-electronvolts).

This "inconvenient" number placed the Universe in the so-called metastability zone. The mass of the Higgs boson is not large enough to guarantee complete stability of the cosmos, but it is also not small enough for the world to collapse immediately. Calculations showed that the existing vacuum is false. It could suddenly transition to another state.

To explain metastability, physicists use a simple analogy with a landscape. Imagine a hilly terrain. Our world is like a ball resting in a small dip on the slope of a high mountain. The ball appears to be motionless and stable because the walls of the dip hold it in place. This is the "false vacuum" — the state in which, according to recent data, the Universe currently exists.

The problem is that further down the slope lies a much deeper valley — the "true vacuum" with the minimum possible energy. In classical physics, the ball would remain in its dip forever. But in the quantum world, different rules apply. Due to the tunneling effect, particles can pass through barriers even if they lack the energy to jump over them. Theoretically, the "ball" could seep through the wall of the dip and roll down into the true valley. This descent is what is referred to as vacuum decay.

The "Big Rip" Scenario

If this occurs, the event would be fatal for the Universe. The process would begin with nucleation — the appearance of a tiny bubble of "true vacuum" at any random point in space. From there, events would unfold according to a catastrophic scenario:

• Instantaneous expansion. The walls of this bubble would expand at the speed of light, consuming the space of the false vacuum.
• No warnings. Since the front of the catastrophe moves at the speed of light, it will be impossible to see it approaching. All people would simply disappear without understanding what happened.
• Collapse of matter. Inside the bubble, different laws of physics apply. The Higgs field would take on a new value there, changing the masses of all particles. Atoms would disintegrate, as nuclei could no longer hold together. Chemistry as a science would cease to exist.
• Gravitational collapse. The space inside the bubble could instantly collapse into a singularity — a point of infinite density.

Theoretically, this catastrophe could have already begun. Its epicenter could be thousands or even millions of light-years away from Earth. In that case, the expanding bubble of "true vacuum" would not reach our planet for a very long time. But it will inevitably happen if the rupture has indeed occurred. Whether it has or not, humanity may never know.

The Main Opponent of Stability

Why is the current vacuum under threat at all? Research from 2024–2025 points to a "culprit" — the top quark. This is the heaviest known elementary particle.

If the Higgs boson acts as a "guardian," trying to keep the system in balance, the heavy top quark, through its influence, "pulls" the vacuum parameters down toward instability.

Recent measurements have refined the mass of the top quark — 172.56 GeV. This is an incredibly precise setting. If this particle were just 0.5 GeV heavier, the Universe would have collapsed before it could even exist for a couple of billion years. The parameters are currently literally on a knife's edge.

Vacuum in a Test Tube

For a long time, vacuum decay was merely a theory. But in 2024, scientists from Italy and the UK managed to recreate this process in the laboratory.

Of course, they did not tear the fabric of the Universe. The researchers used supercooled sodium atoms, creating a special condensate at a temperature close to absolute zero. The system was transitioned into an unstable state — an analogue of false vacuum.

The result confirmed the theory: bubbles of a new phase spontaneously emerged in the atomic cloud, rapidly beginning to capture the surrounding space. This was the first direct evidence that the decay mechanism works exactly as predicted by physicists.

Should We Fear Colliders?

Every time scientists conduct powerful experiments, the question arises: "Will the researchers push the ball into the abyss with their own hands?" Will the next LHC run be a trigger for the end of the world?

• Cosmic ray argument. Nature conducts experiments more powerful than human ones every second. Earth and other planets have been bombarded by cosmic rays for billions of years with energies unattainable by existing accelerators. Earth has already survived millions of events similar to LHC experiments and still exists.
• Power deficiency. Stephen Hawking warned that vacuum decay is possible at energies above 100 billion GeV. The LHC operates at energies billions of times lower. To create a threat, an accelerator the size of Earth's orbit would need to be built.
• Lifetime of the Universe. The probability of spontaneous tunneling is infinitesimally small. Calculations show that the lifetime of metastable vacuum exceeds the current age of the Universe by billions of times.

What’s the Bottom Line

The fundamental parameters of the Universe are tuned so finely that even the slightest deviation would make its existence impossible. The study of vacuum is not aimed at predicting an apocalypse. It is a way to understand why the laws of nature are what they are. Scientists continue to search for new physics that may explain this mysterious "tuning" and possibly find hidden forces that make the world more stable than it seems now. For now, one can sleep peacefully: if the existing vacuum is indeed "false," its safety margin will last for trillions of years.