Rosa Rubicondior: Creationism Refuted - Something From Nothing

Illustration of photon-photon scattering in the laboratory. Two green petawatt lasers beams collide at the focus with a third red beam to polarise the quantum vacuum. This allows a fourth blue laser beam to be generated, with a unique direction and colour, which conserves momentum and energy.

Credit: Zixin (Lily) Zhang

Oxford physicists recreate extreme quantum vacuum effects | University of Oxford Department of Physics

As Sam Harris once remarked, “When religions are right, they are right by accident.” His point highlights the lack of empirical grounding in religious claims, which are typically non-falsifiable and therefore beyond the scope of scientific validation.

Ironically, this may mean that the authors of Genesis were accidentally correct in one of their most iconic assertions: that the universe began with the creation of light (Genesis 1:3). While the biblical writers lacked any scientific understanding, modern physics now suggests that under extreme quantum conditions, something akin to this could indeed occur — light arising from an apparent vacuum.

This is an area where creationists normally tie themselves up in knots, claiming on the one hand that you can't get something out of nothing because it contravenes the laws of thermodynamics and on the other hand that a god made of nothing created the universe out of nothing with some magic words.

The truth, of course, is rather more rational and subject to scientific analysis and testing.

Researchers at the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford have successfully simulated a remarkable prediction of quantum electrodynamics: the spontaneous emergence of photons from empty space. Their work, published in Communications Physics, demonstrates how light can be generated from the quantum vacuum — a phenomenon that, until now, had only existed as a theoretical possibility.

Background: Quantum Vacuum and the Creation of Light. What Is a Quantum Vacuum?

In classical physics, a vacuum is simply empty space — a region devoid of matter and energy. But in quantum field theory, a vacuum is far from empty. Instead, it is a seething field of potential activity where particles and antiparticles can spontaneously appear and annihilate, thanks to the uncertainty principle. This is often referred to as “vacuum fluctuations.”

The Dynamical Casimir Effect

One particularly intriguing prediction of quantum theory is the dynamical Casimir effect. This describes how rapidly changing the boundary conditions of a vacuum — such as accelerating a mirror — can convert vacuum fluctuations into real photons, effectively producing light out of ‘nothing’. It's a manifestation of the fact that even the vacuum has energy, and under the right conditions, that energy can be transformed into observable particles.

Simulating Extreme Physics

Until recently, the dynamical Casimir effect had not been directly demonstrated in realistic physical systems. The Oxford team achieved this by simulating the conditions using a superconducting quantum circuit — essentially a highly controlled and tunable analogue of quantum fields in extreme settings like those found near black holes or during cosmic inflation.

Why It Matters

This research offers insights into the nature of the quantum vacuum and the limits of what "nothing" really means. It also opens avenues for simulating other extreme phenomena, such as Hawking radiation and particle production in the early universe — all within a laboratory environment.

The findings are also summarised in a press release from the university.

Oxford physicists recreate extreme quantum vacuum effects
Physicists at the University of Oxford have successfully simulated how light interacts with empty space – a phenomenon once thought to belong purely to the realm of science fiction. The simulations recreated a bizarre phenomenon predicted by quantum physics, where light appears to be generated from darkness. The findings pave the way for real-world laser facilities to experimentally confirm bizarre quantum phenomena. The results have been published in Communications Physics.
Using advanced computational modelling, a research team led by the University of Oxford, working in partnership with the Instituto Superior Técnico in the University of Lisbon, has achieved the first-ever real-time, three-dimensional simulations of how intense laser beams alter the ‘quantum vacuum’ – a state once assumed to be empty, but which quantum physics predicts is full of virtual electron-positron pairs.

Excitingly, these simulations recreate a bizarre phenomenon predicted by quantum physics, known as vacuum four-wave mixing. This states that the combined electromagnetic field of three focused laser pulses can polarise the virtual electron-positron pairs of a vacuum, causing photons to bounce off each other like billiard balls – generating a fourth laser beam in a ‘light from darkness’ process. These events could act as a probe of new physics at extremely high intensities.

This is not just an academic curiosity – it is a major step toward experimental confirmation of quantum effects that until now have been mostly theoretical.

Professor Peter Norreys, co-author
Department of Physics
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

The work arrives just in time as a new generation of ultra-powerful lasers starts to come online. Facilities such as the UK’s Vulcan 20-20, the European Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project, and China’s Station for Extreme Light (SEL) and SHINE facilities are set to deliver power levels high enough to potentially confirm photon-photon scattering in the lab for the first time. Photon-photon scattering has already been selected as one of three flag-ship experiments at the University of Rochester’s OPAL dual-beam 25 PW laser facility in the United States. The simulations were carried out using an advanced version of OSIRIS, a simulation software package which models interactions between laser beams and matter or plasma.

Our computer program gives us a time-resolved, 3D window into quantum vacuum interactions that were previously out of reach. By applying our model to a three-beam scattering experiment, we were able to capture the full range of quantum signatures, along with detailed insights into the interaction region and key time scales. Having thoroughly benchmarked the simulation, we can now turn our attention to more complex and exploratory scenarios – including exotic laser beam structures and flying-focus pulses.

Zixin Zhang, lead author
Department of Physics
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

Crucially, these models provide details that experimentalists depend on to design precise, real-world tests including realistic laser shapes and pulse timings. The simulations also reveal new insights, including how these interactions evolve in real time and how subtle asymmetries in beam geometry can shift the outcome.

According to the team, the tool will not only assist in planning future high-energy laser experiments but could also help search for signs of hypothetical particles such as axions and millicharged particles – potential candidates for dark matter.

A wide range of planned experiments at the most advanced laser facilities will be greatly assisted by our new computational method implemented in OSIRIS. The combination of ultra-intense lasers, state-of-the-art detection, cutting-edge analytical and numerical modelling are the foundations for a new era in laser-matter interactions, which will open new horizons for fundamental physics.

Professor Luis Silva, co-author
Instituto Superior Tecnico
University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
And Visiting Professor in Physics
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

Publication:
Zhang, Z., Aboushelbaya, R., Ouatu, I. et al.
Computational modelling of the semi-classical quantum vacuum in 3D. Commun Phys 8, 224 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-025-02128-8

Technical details appear in the team's paper in Communications Physics:

Abstract
The global commissioning of multi-Petawatt laser systems provides unprecedented access to ultra-high electromagnetic fields for probing the quantum vacuum. However, current analytical models are limited, necessitating large-scale simulations for experimental validation. Here, we present real-time three-dimensional simulations of two quantum vacuum effects, using a semi-classical numerical solver based on the Heisenberg-Euler Lagrangian. The simulation model is benchmarked against vacuum birefringence analytical results with a counter-propagating setup. Simulations results of both plane-wave and Gaussian pulses are consistent with theoretical predictions. The solver is then applied to four-wave mixing using three Gaussian pulses with real-time information on the harmonic evolution. We provide quantitative explanations for the astigmatism in the output and produce precise estimates of the interaction time and size. Results are compared with the plane-wave model and previous numerical results. This solver paves the way for in-depth investigations of a broad spectrum of quantum vacuum effects in any arbitrary laser setup.

Zhang, Z., Aboushelbaya, R., Ouatu, I. et al.
Computational modelling of the semi-classical quantum vacuum in 3D.
Commun Phys 8, 224 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-025-02128-8

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Although some creationists may seize upon this discovery as 'proof' that the fiat lux ("Let there be light") moment described in Genesis corresponds to the spontaneous generation of light from the quantum vacuum, there is no evidence whatsoever that the authors of the Bible had even the faintest understanding of quantum electrodynamics—or indeed, any concept of particle physics.

Their description of the early universe was based on the cosmology of the ancient Near East: a flat Earth covered by a solid dome (the firmament), which separated the waters above from the waters below. Rain, in this view, came from the celestial ocean beyond the dome, and the Earth floated on a primordial sea. This model reflected a limited, Earth-centric perspective and made a kind of intuitive sense to people who knew nothing of planetary structure, astronomy, or global geography.

The notion that individuals with no knowledge of atoms, let alone quantum fields, somehow encoded modern physics into ancient scripture—but failed to mention anything resembling scientific insight—is simply implausible.

As Sam Harris observed, any overlap between religious texts and scientific truth is almost certainly coincidental. The authors of Genesis may have stumbled, by accident, upon an echo of what truly happened at the birth of the universe—but they attributed it to divine command, spoken, according to a literal reading of the original texts, in a language that no-one else in the Universe spoke at that time, because that aligned with their view of a magical, supernatural cosmos.

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