Where Does Energy Originate?

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In summary, the conversation discusses the laws of thermodynamics and conservation, which state that energy cannot be created or destroyed. The question of where energy comes from is then raised, with some participants suggesting the big bang theory as a possible explanation. However, it is acknowledged that the big bang theory does not provide an answer to the origin of energy. The conversation concludes with the realization that while we have many laws about energy, we still do not fully understand its origins.
  • #36
Hypo said:
Are there any physical or mathematical equations to support the big bang?
I'd like to study each step by looking at each equation. Can you hint me with them?

Not a chance. The physics behind the standard model of cosmology is extremely complex and involves multiples kinds of math and multiple types of theories. You'd have to learn both General Relativity and at least a little bit of Quantum Mechanics, no small feat.

So far nothing proves that the universe will keep on expanding with no end. What's been proven that it does expand and countless experiments years ago proved it so as recent ones.(Yet I believe all of you would say it won't end because 96% of the universe is energy + matter = both can't be created nor destroyed.)

Are you looking for the ultimate irrefutable evidence? If so, you're never going to find it. We know what we are looking at and that it tells us that the universe is expanding and accelerating. Unless something changes then it will continue to expand, possibly forever. But, seeing as how we cannot see the future there is always the possibility that something will be different in the future.

Energy, matter, the beginning, the end all in all something is related something BIG out of the picture.

You could find what I'm saying is complete non-sense but keep in mind many theories and ideas started this way. Even if I was wrong I'm lift with good answers of what I'm talking about, or possibile better idea on certain things.

Hyp.

You are severely overconfident in your own ideas. People come to this forum all the time with similar ideas and usually have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. If you really want to come up with a new theory you are going to have to learn the current ones first and address the known issues with those. In addition, personal theories are not allowed on PF per the rules. Please keep to the standard models and theories.
 
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  • #37
Drakkith said:
Not a chance. The physics behind the standard model of cosmology is extremely complex and involves multiples kinds of math and multiple types of theories. You'd have to learn both General Relativity and at least a little bit of Quantum Mechanics, no small feat.
Are you looking for the ultimate irrefutable evidence? If so, you're never going to find it. We know what we are looking at and that it tells us that the universe is expanding and accelerating. Unless something changes then it will continue to expand, possibly forever. But, seeing as how we cannot see the future there is always the possibility that something will be different in the future.
You are severely overconfident in your own ideas. People come to this forum all the time with similar ideas and usually have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. If you really want to come up with a new theory you are going to have to learn the current ones first and address the known issues with those. In addition, personal theories are not allowed on PF per the rules. Please keep to the standard models and theories.

I've given you the wrong image of what I am trying to achieve.

About the personal theories thing I'd say that's far enough.
 
  • #38
Hypo said:
Are there any physical or mathematical equations to support the big bang?
I'd like to study each step by looking at each equation. Can you hint me with them?
This will take you years. The Big Bang is a consequence of General Relativity, so you will have to learn that -- and the math required to learn it first.

So far nothing proves that the universe will keep on expanding with no end.
You can't say that. Just because you are unaware of the theory/evidence doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You're going to need to have a little trust in people who do know.
You could find what I'm saying is complete non-sense but keep in mind many theories and ideas started this way.
No they don't. What you're doing is idle speculation based on ignorance. New theories start with intensive study and complete understanding of what is already known about a particular subject.
 
  • #39
Hypo said:
Are there any physical or mathematical equations to support the big bang?
I'd like to study each step by looking at each equation. Can you hint me with them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble's_law[/PLAIN]

"Although widely attributed to Edwin Hubble, the law was first derived from the General Relativity equations by Georges Lemaître in a 1927 article where he proposed that the Universe is expanding and suggested an estimated value of the rate of expansion, now called the Hubble constant.[2][3][4][5][6] Two years later Edwin Hubble confirmed the existence of that law and determined a more accurate value for the constant that now bears his name[7]."

The General Relativity equations mentioned in that wiki article are known as the Einstein Field Equations. They involve some pretty hairy mathematics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_field_equations

Hypo said:
So far nothing proves that the universe will keep on expanding with no end. What's been proven that it does expand and countless experiments years ago proved it so as recent ones.

I think you misunderstand the concept of "proof" in science; there is no absolute proof, only evidence which supports or contradicts a hypothesis. All the evidence supports an expanding universe with an accelerating rate of expansion, while there is no evidence that the rate of expansion will slow.

Hypo said:
(Yet I believe all of you would say it won't end because 96% of the universe is energy + matter = both can't be created nor destroyed.)

The laws of the universe are limited to this universe. It makes no sense to talk about the laws of this universe (e.g. conservation of matter-energy) where the universe doesn't exist (e.g. "before" the big bang).
 
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  • #40
Hypo said:
Okay did energy come along with the "big bang" or was it created by big bang? I am really confused at that point what about you?

I mean what DO ALL OF YOU think about energy and where it came from? Honestly its just mind blowing when you study more about it.

Gosh, I'm surprised no one's brought this into the discussion.

Per our current understanding of the Universe, there was nothing before the Big Bang. That was the beginning of existence and it makes no sense to talk about before it. So all that energy's existed at every valid point in time.
 
  • #41
Per our current understanding of the Universe, there was nothing before the Big Bang.

no one knows: Some think time started at the Big Bang [Hawking] others think space and time started at the Big Bang...other think there was no Big Bang [e.g.; Steinhardt,Turok].
How about gravity and entropy, for example...
The Big Bang does not describe cosmic origins...it starts just after time zero. At the huge densities at the beginning of the Big Bang, gravity was the dominant energy. In this case it was repulsive gravity resulting in an inflationary model of cosmology. It is Einstein's cosmological constant that provides this repulsive push.



Are there any physical or mathematical equations to support the big bang?

Check out here to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflationary_cosmology

Allan Guth had the original idea which has been improved upon over time...
 
  • #42
Hypo said:
Yet I believe all of you would say it won't end because 96% of the universe is energy + matter = both can't be created nor destroyed.
Hyp.

Don't forget gravity, it is the least understood form of energy, for example its relationship with entropy (well dark energy is probably less understood...).
It is likely that gravity holds the key to some answers to some of the deep puzzles.

We do not know why there is energy, many scientists believe that the net energy of the universe is zero, if so the question becomes "why did zero energy 'decouple' into positive and negative energy and make gradients".
In any case energy seems to be what makes everything in the universe exist, forces and matter, including gravity and dark energy, so we can say that energy is simply the reason why there is a universe at all.
 
  • #43
Gerinski said:
Don't forget gravity, it is the least understood form of energy, for example its relationship with entropy (well dark energy is probably less understood...).
It is likely that gravity holds the key to some answers to some of the deep puzzles.

Gravity is not a form of energy, it is one of the 4 fundamental interactions.

In any case energy seems to be what makes everything in the universe exist, forces and matter, including gravity and dark energy, so we can say that energy is simply the reason why there is a universe at all.

None of the fundamental interactions require energy to function. I think you are looking way too far into what energy is.
 
  • #44
I think maybe the word "energy" has become a bit overused in some places. Mostly sci fi. In lots of sci fi stories or games, people talk about energy as if it's a "thing" like a bullet or a piece of metal as a shield.

Energy isn't a thing at all, it's just a way to describe the properties of a system, like Drakkith said. Therefore it doesn't really "come from" anywhere, it's just there.

I mean, heck, a rock can have many different amounts of energy, depending on what you want.

Picture a boulder of mass m on top of a table that is h meters high, and the table is on top of a hill whose bottom is x meters down.

The boulder has mgh energy if you care about it falling from the table, but it also has mgx energy if you care about it falling from the table and down to the bottom of the hill. In fact you could even use mgx when considering it falling off the table only.

Energy is only relevant when you're talking about differences of energy, so really there is no "fixed" amount of energy, just a fixed amount of "stuff" which can be described with energy.
 
  • #45
bluey said:
Google is your friend!

OK Ill put it another way and this is understood by anyone with a bit more than a passing interest in physics,energy comes from nothing! take a configurable bit of space with nothing in it, no radiation,no heat or light nothing and you will get virtual particles popping in and out of existence.If you had a proton which is made of quarks the quarks and the gluon particles that hold it together make up about 10% of the mass,the rest is made up of virtual particles,which is nothing.this is one of the most precise measurements ever made in science.Go ahead and look it up.
 
  • #46
bluey said:
OK Ill put it another way and this is understood by anyone with a bit more than a passing interest in physics,energy comes from nothing! take a configurable bit of space with nothing in it, no radiation,no heat or light nothing and you will get virtual particles popping in and out of existence.If you had a proton which is made of quarks the quarks and the gluon particles that hold it together make up about 10% of the mass,the rest is made up of virtual particles,which is nothing.this is one of the most precise measurements ever made in science.Go ahead and look it up.

I'm not sure I agree with this "energy comes from nothing" idea. If virtual particles do exist and they work like we think they do, then we know exactly where the energy comes from, and it isn't "nothing" as far as I understand.
 
  • #47
Drakkith said:
I'm not sure I agree with this "energy comes from nothing" idea. If virtual particles do exist and they work like we think they do, then we know exactly where the energy comes from, and it isn't "nothing" as far as I understand.
Well that's Quantum mechanics for you!It is not intuitive to us on the macro scale and seems downright weird. We have the idea that condensed matter was created at the radiation decoupling stage soon after the big bang which it has been theorized was itself a quantum fluctuation of vacuum energy.
 
  • #48
bluey said:
Well that's Quantum mechanics for you!It is not intuitive to us on the macro scale and seems downright weird. We have the idea that condensed matter was created at the radiation decoupling stage soon after the big bang which it has been theorized was itself a quantum fluctuation of vacuum energy.

Yes, but that is not "nothing" in my opinion.
 
  • #49
Drakkith said:
Yes, but that is not "nothing" in my opinion.

The quantum fluctuation that caused the big bang came from nothing and the vacuum energy of space from which the virtual particles borrow their energy works out mathematically to be zero (nothing). Its to do with symmetry, something and nothing will cancel out. It took me a while to comprehend it but when the penny dropped it all became clear.
 
  • #50
bluey said:
The quantum fluctuation that caused the big bang came from nothing ...

I was under the impression that physicsts to not pretend to know WHAT caused the events at the singularity. Do you have citations for this?
 
  • #51
bluey said:
The quantum fluctuation that caused the big bang came from nothing and the vacuum energy of space from which the virtual particles borrow their energy works out mathematically to be zero (nothing). Its to do with symmetry, something and nothing will cancel out. It took me a while to comprehend it but when the penny dropped it all became clear.

Why would the vacuum energy of space be "nothing"?
 
  • #52
phinds said:
I was under the impression that physicsts to not pretend to know WHAT caused the events at the singularity. Do you have citations for this?

You have spelled physicists wrong! Don't be lazy,google it yourself.
 
  • #53
That is a strawman argument and irrelevant. Try the philosophy forum.
 
  • #54
Chronos said:
That is a strawman argument and irrelevant. Try the philosophy forum.

Exactly!
 
  • #55
So, what are you attempting to accomplish on this forum? Were I a Mentor this thread would have been immediately closed as irrelevant to scientific inquiry.
 
  • #56
The whole universes energy is borrowed.just like virtual particles emerge from nothing i think.

Quantum cosmology
 
  • #57
aishwariya said:
The whole universes energy is borrowed.just like virtual particles emerge from nothing i think.

Quantum cosmology

Okay. That's one theory, which comes from a complete misinterpretation of QM. See https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=511176

bluey said:
You have spelled physicists wrong! Don't be lazy,google it yourself.
Don't insult Phinds! :smile:
 
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  • #58
bluey said:
You have spelled physicists wrong! Don't be lazy,google it yourself.

It was a slip of the figner :smile:
 
  • #59
phinds said:
It was a slip of the figner :smile:

a figner rotation :wink:
 
  • #60
Does anyone listen to Hawking anymore? We have 'something' rather than 'nothing' due to physical laws of gravity and quantum theory that govern our universe. Perhaps not other universes, of which there could exist an infinite number, per M-Theory, which Hawking has adopted as the only theory that will lead to the theory of everything, if, in fact, such a theory can ever be found.

Infinity and Nothing can be comprehended mathematically, but not physically. Unless, you come to the inevitable conclusion, perhaps pseudo scientifically, I am afraid, as I have, that Something and Nothing are one and the same, just different manifestations of each other.
 
  • #61
Hypo said:
I do believe in those laws so far they've been the fundamental laws of physics. However, we use physics mostly to answer questions now the BIG question is left un answered where does energy come from?

Energy comes from math...

There is something called Noether's theorem. The idea is that if you have a set of rules with a symmetry, there will be a number that stays the same. So it turns out that the rules of physics are time-invariant. If you do a physics experiment and you do them same experiment yesterday or tomorrow, you will get the same results.

Once you've established that, then it follows that there will be some number that will stay the same. That number is energy.

Since now they believe in the BigBang"Universe from nothingness" then that violates the laws since energy can't come from nothingness?

1) They don't. The standard model of cosmology says *nothing* about what happened at event zero.
2) You only get conservation of energy if the rules of physics don't change. If the rules change, energy is not conserved. We have good reasons to believe that the rules of physics didn't change after "event zero", but at "event zero" it could have changed radically.

Give me some sense people I'm kinda lost. Have people thought of this before or just choose to neglect it?

Yes, lot of people have thought of it.
 
  • #62
bluey said:
The quantum fluctuation that caused the big bang came from nothing and the vacuum energy of space from which the virtual particles borrow their energy works out mathematically to be zero (nothing).

Someone needs to have a talk with Lawerence Krauss. Apparently he has been giving talks on this idea of the "universe from nothing."

1) Krauss gets a lot of his cosmology *WRONG* - There are *big* problems with this virtual particle causing the big bang idea. The basic problem is that there are some very strict rules about when you can have a virtual particle, and no one has come close to showing that the big bang can come from those rules.

The other problem is that a) it's really hard to define the "total energy of the universe" and b) any reasonable definition is going to give you a number other than zero

2) Where he doesn't get things wrong, he give people the impression that he is talking about settled science rather than his personal opinions (which as far as I can tell have not be peer reviewed). It doesn't help that Richard Dawkins is spreading Krauss's ideas.

Sigh... For the good old days when we just had to worry about young Earth creationists spreading misinformation.
 
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  • #63
Hypo said:
I mean what DO ALL OF YOU think about energy and where it came from? Honestly its just mind blowing when you study more about it.

Yes, and the conclusion that I have come up with is "I don't know."
 
  • #64
phinds said:
I was under the impression that physicsts to not pretend to know WHAT caused the events at the singularity. Do you have citations for this?

He doesn't, but I do...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/145162445X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

It's a dreadful book, because it gets it's cosmology wrong.
 
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  • #65
twofish-quant said:
He doesn't, but I do...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/145162445X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

It's a dreadful book, because it gets it's cosmology wrong.

I beg to differ, I read the book and it made sense to me,where else would I have gotten the idea? Actually it reminds me of the nascent times of plate tectonics,now with the benefit of hindsight it is obvious. Anyway its early days,a bit more research and who knows?
 
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  • #66
bluey said:
I beg to differ, I read the book and it made sense to me,where else would I have gotten the idea?

That's precisely the problem. It makes perfect sense to people who aren't cosmology experts but it's scientifically *WRONG*.

One thing about Krauss is that he does seem to have written some quite good papers on cosmology, but the ideas in that book have not be peer reviewed, so 1) they don't represent the scientific consensus and 2) he gets some things *WRONG*.

Actually it reminds me of the nascent times of plate tectonics,now with the benefit of hindsight it is obvious. Anyway its early days,a bit more research and who knows?

It's not in it's early days. Tryon first suggested it in 1973. The problem with this idea is that there are lots of restrictions on what sort of vacuum fluctuations can form and what one's can't. We see virtual particles every day, but we don't see big bangs. You can argue that the big bang is a magic vacuum fluctuation, but that's barely better than saying "God did it."

Also there is a big difference between personal speculation and scientific consensus, and people that write popular books should make it clear what they are saying.
 
  • #67
Krauss is a cosmology expert and I don't see how he can get it so wrong and Edward Tryon too for that matter.there is a scientific consensus out there and Krauss is crazy enough and tough enough to back it and promote it publicly.
 
  • #68
bluey said:
Krauss is a cosmology expert and I don't see how he can get it so wrong

That's the problem. Also if you want to get into a credential war, my specialty isn't cosmology but I do have a doctorate in theoretical astrophysics, and I can say that Krauss gets his cosmology *very wrong*.

The universe is not in a zero-energy state. It's just not.

There is a scientific consensus out there and Krauss is crazy enough and tough enough to back it and promote it publicly.

Sigh...

This is just not true. There is absolutely no consensus on what happened pre-inflation. There are about a dozen ideas. Krauss is entitled to his own opinions, but his opinions on this topic carry no more weight than yours or mine.
 
  • #69
Krauss carries more weight than you or I because he is an expert in his field,for you to say he is very wrong and its just not true carries no weight whatsoever in the scheme of things,the only alternative argument (as weak as it is)I have heard has come from theology.
 
  • #70
bluey said:
Krauss carries more weight than you or I because he is an expert in his field,for you to say he is very wrong and its just not true carries no weight whatsoever in the scheme of things,the only alternative argument (as weak as it is)I have heard has come from theology.

Ugh ...

And I'd say that Krauss's argument's even weaker because it isn't exactly accurate with Quantum Mechanics.

And there's one more alternative argument, probably more accepted. That the Big Bang was the start of time, so thinking about before it is invalid.

And there's that argument again. "Experts cannot do wrong."
 

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