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mee
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If energy can neither be created or destroyed, why is there supposedly a "heat death" or any sort of death to the universe.
selfAdjoint said:Energy can be free or not. If it's free it can do things, if it's not the only thing it can do is make heat. If the heat is the same temperature everywhere, nothing physical can happen on the larger scale. Entropy is the conversion of free energy into heat energy. The energy is not destroyed but its ability to effect change is no more.
This is now seen as a statistical effect, of the more probable states succeeding the less probable ones. And there could always be a quantum fluctuation, so the heat death is not the ultimate last thing the nineteenth century physicists envisioned.
selfAdjoint said:No, by not free I mean energy confined to jiggling, with no temperature differential anywhere. Matter is unstable on the longest scale (protons eventually decay even in the standard model), so that eventually we are talking about a bath of photons at equilibrium.
Energy is a fundamental property of the universe that is required for all physical processes. It can be defined as the ability to do work and is present in all forms of matter and radiation. In relation to the end of the universe, energy plays a crucial role in determining the fate of the universe.
Energy is responsible for the expansion of the universe. According to the theory of general relativity, the distribution of matter and energy in the universe determines the curvature of spacetime, which in turn affects the rate of expansion. In the early universe, when the energy density was very high, it caused the universe to expand rapidly. As the universe continues to expand, the energy density decreases and the rate of expansion slows down.
According to current theories, the universe will not run out of energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be converted from one form to another. As the universe continues to expand, the energy density will decrease, but it will never reach zero. However, the universe may eventually reach a state of maximum entropy, where all energy is evenly distributed and no work can be done.
The concept of "heat death" of the universe is based on the idea that as the universe expands and the energy density decreases, all matter and energy will eventually become evenly distributed and reach a state of maximum entropy. This means that there will be no energy available for any processes to occur, resulting in a state of equilibrium and no further changes in the universe.
Dark energy is a theoretical form of energy that is believed to be responsible for the current accelerated expansion of the universe. It is thought to make up about 68% of the total energy in the universe. As the universe continues to expand, dark energy will become more dominant and could potentially lead to a "big rip" scenario where the universe expands at an increasing rate, tearing apart all structures and ultimately resulting in the end of the universe.