[The Scientist (OP)]

Please share your views with us. Thank you for participating!

[wolfekeeper]

All known energy in the universe comes from the big bang.

The Big Bang was a 'low entropy' state (it had a low level of disorder). You can generate energy by taking a low energy state and turning it into high entropy. The universe is therefore getting more disordered, and this allows the production of energy. For example in stars hydrogen (a very simple atom) is being turned into helium (a less simple, higher entropy atom) and this change generates the light and heat that stars provide.

Why the Big Bang was low entropy isn't known.

Pretty much all the energy on Earth comes from stars. First, most of the planet's solar energy from the Sun drives the life on the surface. Second the radioactivity in rocks comes from a supernova whose remnants formed the solar system.

[Pmb]

Please share your views with us. Thank you for participating!

One train of thought is that energy doesn't come from anywhere. I.e. that the total energy in the universe is zero. This can be accomplished by the total gravitational potential energy, which is negative, being ballanced by an equal but opposite amount of positive energy, given in terms of kinetic energy, mass energy and positive potential energy.

[yor_on]

Yeah, i lean toward Pmb's view too. as it seems that a vacuum also contain energy. But I would like to add that if the total outcome is zero, which makes sense to me at least then that also might explain why we have an expansion creating more vacuum energy, that in it's turn have to be negated as distances continuing in a merry go round, as observed from our frame(s) of reference. And then energy is what exist everywhere, and knows no boundaries, when compared to f.ex light that have known constraints upon it.

[JP]

Yeah, i lean toward Pmb's view too. as it seems that a vacuum also contain energy. But I would like to add that if the total outcome is zero, which makes sense to me at least then that also might explain why we have an expansion creating more vacuum energy, that in it's turn have to be negated as distances continuing in a merry go round, as observed from our frame(s) of reference. And then energy is what exist everywhere, and knows no boundaries, when compared to f.ex light that have known constraints upon it.

I'm not quite following.  If creating more space creates more energy, then how does it balance out to zero as more space gets created? 

[yor_on]

It's only my own view and rather wild speculation. In fact there are several premises I make. One is that it is correct that the expansion we see comes to be because space 'grows' by itself. Another is that it is correct that with that expanding space we have new amounts of energy coming into being. The third is that that we do have a equilibrium (Zero balance) in SpaceTime. Reasoning from that it makes sense to me that if there comes to exist more energy something else have to change too keep that equilibrium. And that I expect to be space expanding. Distances is frame dependent if I got it right? Which means that in some way they seems all an illusion to me, although being very real from whatever frame we observe them. But as I said, I have nothing to prove it by, more than if the premises are correct we actually seem to get energy and new distances from 'nothing', which then seem to imply that what we observe is not what is. Almost as if SpaceTime would be some sort of anomaly in a larger ocean of 'energy'.

As for the fact I believe to support it, that distances are frame dependent. I've seen a lot of discussions about it, but for myself I accept as a reality that distances actually only are a relation, and as I understand it are closely connected to what we call speed as well as of matter (invariant mass). Both have the ability to make distances change, a black hole f.ex or something traveling close to lightspeed. If that is true then we have one thing left and that is time. But time change with those factors too, and will depending on your frame of observation give different answers. Why it can do so and yet still present us with a 'whole' unbroken experience seems to rest on the fact that our 'personal time', if I might call it that, the time we ourselves experience never seems to differ. A second as measured by your clock will relate the same way to your heartbeat no matter if you're in a speeding rocket, at the fringe of a black hole, or at rest on Earth. Which is one of the most remarkable facts I know of, and makes me wonder how small those 'frames of reference' can become and if you can isolate where one ends and the other starts. Macroscopically you can observe the same remarkable fact. You just have to look up a starry night to see the universe, and to you it will all be seamlessly a whole, no matter those other frames of reference existing observing different distances etc.

The last pointer is the way constants always seems to adapt to each other. We have one invariant as I understands it and that's lights speed in a vacuum, that will be true from all frames, but otherwise time, mass and distances all behave as a seamless whole, although subtly changing depending on from what frame of reference you observe it. That points as I see it to a SpaceTime of plasticity, whole in itself with a equilibrium that won't get disturbed as we change frame. In such a soap bubble if you transfer energy it will expand and as it expands you will get more energy which in its turn will expand etc etc. What talks against it is the question about how fast it accelerates. To me it seems that it should go faster and faster, and very quickly run amok as more 'space' came to be. and the reason space 'expands' would then be the need for our our soapbubble to contain it's equilibrium..


I like it but I haven't really thought it through.
It just seems to fit somehow.

[JP]

The whole idea of vacuum energy makes a lot of sense to me, since I know quantum theory fairly well.  It still doesn't make much sense that you could make more space (which makes more energy) and yet hold total energy constant, but I don't know general relativity too well, so it might be possible, just counterintuitive to me. 

[flr]

 As my ship (imagine one) is decelerating I will notice that planets in front of me are getting further away. (that is due to length contraction with speed).
 If I wouldn't be aware that I am decelerating I should see the space in front of me expanding for no apparent reason.   
 
 

[tommya300]

Yeah, i lean toward Pmb's view too. as it seems that a vacuum also contain energy. But I would like to add that if the total outcome is zero, which makes sense to me at least then that also might explain why we have an expansion creating more vacuum energy, that in it's turn have to be negated as distances continuing in a merry go round, as observed from our frame(s) of reference. And then energy is what exist everywhere, and knows no boundaries, when compared to f.ex light that have known constraints upon it.

I'm not quite following.  If creating more space creates more energy, then how does it balance out to zero as more space gets created? 

When it comes down to it, balance is an illusion or better word approximation, a man made scale to satisfy a real solution, that tolerates some sort of an error.
When and where in the universe can we observe there is rest. Everything is always in termoil.
Nothing sits still there is always a constant push and pull.

[ (Imagination running ramped let you know this next paragraph is just not in my belief) How do we know, since the universe is so vast, and we do not know where the location of the center of it is, maybe it is a big bladder and the walls are part of a bellow that we can not see because of the limitations we have so far. Maybe the the exterior wall is really a thermo barrier and the other side is warmer and getting cooled off as our Universe expands and sinks this heat providing this red shift. ]

 Yep we finally found out that the earth is not flat and space is curved. Maybe someday in the future we will learn to prove the Huge Questions that are in the back of our minds. Then what is left for our Supreme makers? Many questions, many precise answers, Many maybes and allot of definite I do Not Know.

Look at Plancks Constant, (E=hv) where in that linear equation that promotes the null of (E) to exactly zero.

That is my view, I may show flaw from time to time, I may passed over something here, please point it out.

[JP]

Look at Plancks Constant, (E=hv) where in that linear equation that promotes the null of (E) to exactly zero.

That is my view, I may show flaw from time to time, I may passed over something here, please point it out.

That equation is about calculating the energy of a photon in terms of its frequency--it doesn't have anything to do with the energy of space as far as I know...

[yor_on]

The whole idea of vacuum energy makes a lot of sense to me, since I know quantum theory fairly well.  It still doesn't make much sense that you could make more space (which makes more energy) and yet hold total energy constant, but I don't know general relativity too well, so it might be possible, just counterintuitive to me. 

But we make more space with the expansion, don't we?

If that is correct JP, should one then expect the areas 'growing' to be intrinsically different than the space surrounding them?

If it was so, what would we then expect it to do to the energy contained in the universe already?

Diminish the total amount of energy?

In that case, shouldn't we be growing into an entropic death as the vacuum energy per cubic centimeter then would be expected to diminish? and what would it do too 'virtual particles' assuming that vacuum energy and those have a similar origin?

We might detect which way it goes experimenting with the Casimir effect maybe? And if vacuum energy keeps its values no matter where you test, then you have a universe that grows, but also seems to fill up its 'vacuum energy levels' at the same time, the 'expansion' notwithstanding.

and that do make sense to me.

Then there is also the possibility of space getting more energy due to an expansion of course, but all three possibility's should be able to be tested, possibly?

[JulioMarco]

Well, yor_on, JP and Tommy,

When we talk about "vacuum energy", we are talking about fluctuations on the energy levels of a vacuum. I think two points can be raised:

1) If we see fluctuations on the energy level of vaccum and the Universe does not collapse into one single point out of the gravity created by such energy fluctuations, then those fluctuations may have zero mean and a variance. This implies the idea of negative energy.

In order to have negative kinetic energy, we need a framework where you also have inverse time, which appears to be the only way to maintain such proposition as "negative kinetic energy".

In fact, in subatomic scales, it is possible to talk about subtle variations in the space-time continuum that may cause inverse time to come into being, thus allowing negative kinetic energy to exist for a brief moment.

If we think of those variations as cyclical, then we may see random fluctuations raising from very small distortions in the space-time continuum (possibly micro gravitational waves comming from the change in relative position of bodies in the Universe) that can, for a brief moment, make time locally inverse its flow giving birth to negative energy and, in the next moment, returning it to its normal position, giving bitrth to positive kinetic energy. The mean of that random process would be zero, so vaccum would be in balance, no matter how much space you have.

I think a local balance comming from a process with zero mean could adequately explain energetic balance in an expanding universe.

2) Heisenberg would tell us that we can not completely measure the state of a particle at any point... so we may also be incapable of measuring the state of any region of the space-time continuum at any point. This would take us to believe that energy balance in vacuum would be nothing but the percievable results of a process we can not detect...

What do you think?

[yor_on]

Real nice thinking

I presume that you then mean that this will be a constant ongoing process, or fluctuation, as you described it, a cycle? Where we never can get an answer observing it directly, but possibly through indirect means, so called weak interactions, might find proof that this really is the way it works. But if it does work that way my point is proofed As that space then will consist of the same as any other part of space, showing nothing to differ it from the 'old space'. And if so, space do create its energy as it 'grows' (presuming that the idea of expansion actually is right, that is:) And then the question might be what allows it to do so.

Now, we seem to have two options here, either vacuum energy can do 'work', or, it can't, meaning producing a usable energy that we/the universe can transform into something else drawing some use from it. We expect so called 'virtual particles' to be the carriers of all information involved in getting 'work done' and we know that the Casimir experiment, as it draws those plates together, 'do work' too, well, as I see it at least.

So let's say that virtual particles and vacuum energy both can 'do work' transforming energy into other usable expressions Even though it might be impossible for us to get any use of it, the universe still does just that, right? If that is right we now have 'work done' usable by humans, as well as a variety of 'work done' only usable for the universe, again as I see it

But the whole process seem to fall back to what 'energy' really is. In your definition energy is a process having no beginning and no end, as we would define it laboring under our arrow of time, created out of probability more or less. Am I right there? So, is it a fractal process, are there a larger pattern to it hidden in all those fluctuations?

[yor_on]

Rereading you after some sleep I see you took up some other things Julio. I would recommend all that think this 'negative energy' to be confusing to read Ken Olum. But to assume that it craves inverse time? That one you will need to explain a little more to me. As I'm not even sure what you mean there, like the universe played backwards?

You can have what they call 'negative energy without needing to reverse time as I understands it. If that wasn't true we shouldn't see those plates come together in our time-line at all. What I agree too is your idea of vacuum fluctuations coming out of 'nowhere', and that is also what I believe to 'inflate the universe with 'new energy', although possibly not being 'tap-able' for us humans. And if that is right you will have a 'static' level of energy in all of space measured. One could argue that for space to 'grow' there need to be a little more energy needed, as there should be a reason to why it expands, but do we know why it does so? And what the inflationary period really consisted of? Maybe they hang together, maybe this is what is left from that period.

All that we measure comes out of one simple fact, linear time, that we know time to behave differently, if compared to other frames of reference, after an acceleration or motion doesn't change this fact (twin experiment). So, all that we observe will be defined against our clocks which makes it extremely hard to define 'negative time' as existing in SpaceTime'. Whatever way those plates move, they still do it in our SpaceTime and so they move in our arrow of time, well, as I see it.

You will need to define how you think this 'negative time' can get inside our arrow macroscopically for it to work I think? I'm not saying that it is wrong though, it all depends on what time really is. To me time is what makes this universe, and without an arrow arranging SpaceTime from the simple to the complex constantly neither we, nor any thoughts, would come to be.

[yor_on]

Just as by side JP, I saw an older entry by you on the same matter here, "How is the Universe able to expand faster than light?"

Lightarrow, I went hunting for sources on dark energy being linked to "how much" space there is, and I came up with a couple links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy#Cosmological_constant
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/mysteries_l1/dark_energy.html

It sounds like dark energy is tied to the idea of the cosmological constant, and also to the idea of vacuum energy.  The more vacuum you have, the more dark energy there is. Strangely, according to these links, the vacuum energy predicted by particle physics is way way too high for the visible cosmological constant.  So there's obviously something we don't understand yet.

So, dark energy would be tied to the cosmological constant?
And 'vacuum energy' then?
==

Btw: I'm still looking for a search function in the naked scientist. It would be very nice to be able to search directly on keywords etc here.
==

Ahem, found it, tried it and it seems to work too
Wished I'd seen it before )
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Hmm, finding it I realize why I ignored it, sort of.

[simplified]

Repellent and drawing  fields make energy.Tommya300 is right.

[yor_on]

Could energy just be a realized quantum state? As if the universe was constantly in a super position, and where times arrow macroscopically forces 'results' aka those 'realized states', belonging to our 'history'. Then, what are its rules?

[CPT ArkAngel]

Is there something in the universe having a temperature of absolute 0. If there is not, energy could be only the smallest elements of spacetime, matter and light movements (vibrations) relative to each other... Maybe, if you attain absolute 0, matter would just disappear...


n.b: I have just read that absolute zero is not defined the way i thought because even at absolute zero temperature, molecules are still in motion so i should have said absolute no motion temperature... []

[simplified]

Energy is a relative thing. Even a photon has not  same energy for each object.