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Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing comes from nothing (Latin: nihil fit ex nihilo) is a philosophical expression of a thesis first argued by Parmenides. It is associated with ancient Greek cosmology, such as is presented not just in the opus of Homer and Hesiod, but also in virtually every internal system – there is no break in-between a world that did not exist and one that did, since it could not be created ex nihilo in the first place.
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De Rerum Natura
The Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius expressed this principle in his first book of De Rerum Natura (eng. title On the Nature of Things)
He then continues on discussing how matter is required to make matter and that objects cannot spring forth without reasonable cause.
English translation – ex nihilo nihil fit
Literally translated, this Latin phrase means, "out of nothing, nothing [be]comes." The Latin preposition 'ex', which the reader may recognize from many English derivatives such as exit, means 'out of'. 'Nihilo' is the ablative form of the Latin noun 'nihilum' meaning 'Nothing'. 'Fit' is the present indicative form of the Latin verb fio meaning 'to become'.
Modern physics
The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system cannot change. The zero-energy universe states that the amount of energy in the universe minus the amount of gravity is exactly zero. That is the only kind of universe that could come from nothing, assuming such a zero-energy universe is, already, nothing. Such a universe would need to be flat, a state which does not contradict current observations that the universe is flat with a 0.5% margin of error.
Some physicists, such as Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku, define nothing as an unstable quantum vacuum that contains no particles. This is different from the philosophical conception of nothing, which has no inherent properties, and is not governed by physical laws.