What If the Universe Has a Delete Button, and We’re All Doomed?

There are many doomsday scenarios to go around nowadays. For instance, the show called No Tomorrow has a main character, Xavier, who believes that the world will end in eight months and twelve days due to an asteroid hit. He then makes an “apocalyst” – a bucket list of things he needs to do before he dies. Needless to say, it’s a very unlikely scenario from happening in reality, or is it?

Physicists have suggested that the universe might have a self-destruct mechanism, whereby everything in existence could disappear forever at any time, without warning – sort of a delete button for the universe. If this thing is real, this article may be the last thing you read before we are all obliterated from actuality. We would just be oblivious people, surfing the web, watching YouTube videos, and blithely unaware of our impending demise.

How does this button work anyway? Well, essentially everything in existence has a certain energy level. A fruit in a tree for instance has a lot of potential energy, and should it fall to the ground, it will emit a decently high level of energy. However, after it falls to the ground, it reaches a stable state, and its energy become relatively lower. This is what we call the “ground state.”

Now that we have a rudimentary understanding of these principles, we can talk about quantum fields. Quantum fields are the rules that govern all particles in the universe. They follow the principles of energy and stability, and they constantly aim to be on the lowest possible energy level and to be stable. This state is called the “vacuum state.”

The delete button works this way: all quantum fields in the universe have reached its vacuum state, except the Higgs Field. The Higgs Field is responsible for giving particles their mass. It’s lying to us, telling us it’s stable, but it isn’t really. That sneaky field! As such it hides a shitload of potential energy which when released, it will unleash a series of death/destruction rays to all matter living or dead. Hence, delete.

It’s the control + alt + delete of the universe, and this time, when it restarts, it will mess up the physics of things which is not cool. Not cool at all.

So are we all doomed? I give you the video below by Kursgesagt explaining this theory in detail.