Ask Ethan: Should we stop worrying about vacuum decay?
When we gaze out into the abyss of space, it seems like the most peaceful, serene of sights. Night after night, the planets and our Moon migrate predictably — like clockwork — while the stars, the Milky Way, and even extragalactic objects hardly change at all over time. Sure, there are occasional cataclysms, including stars that die and new lights that briefly appear before fading away, as the shining stars burn through their fuel, evolve, and sometimes even interact. But space itself, although it’s expanding, seems like it’s the most stable thing of all: the “stage” upon which the play of the Universe unfolds. Things seem safe for us for two major reasons: everything that we know of that’s potentially dangerous is very, very far away, and that signals, even greatly energetic ones with the potential to cause harm, can only propagate at the speed of light. That doesn’t just include neutrinos, high-energy radiation, and the blast waves from events like supernovae, but potentially the greatest catastrophe of all: vacuum decay. Decaying from a false …








