Was There Ever Nothing? | Tumble Episode
- tumblepodcast
- Apr 11, 2025
- 1 min read
Updated: Dec 28, 2025
What is nothing? Is it empty space? The absence of everything? Or could it be… something?
That’s the question that 8-year-old Aviva sent us for this mind-blowing episode of Tumble. And it sent us searching through the tiniest building blocks of the universe for answers.
🎧 Listen to the Episode
🔎About The Featured Expert
We brought our questions to Dr. Jessica Esquivel, a particle physicist at Fermilab who studies the quantum realm—home of the smallest particles in the universe. She helped us explore whether there really was “nothing” before the Big Bang, and what “nothing” actually is. Along the way, we learn about quantum foam, subatomic dance parties, and muons doing unexpected booty pops inside a gigantic magnetic ring.
Sound confusing? Don’t worry—we break it down, bubble by bubble.
Turns out, what looks like nothing is actually full of SOMETHING. And studying it may help scientists answer the biggest questions of all: Where did the universe come from? Why is it here?
Hear more from Jessica--about the way her identity and experience informs her science, and vice versa!
🧑🏫 Classroom & Home Resources
🔗 NGSS Alignment: 2-PS1-2
📜Crosscutting Concepts: Scale Proportion and Quantity, Energy and Matter
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