How Can the 1st Law of Thermodyamics be Correct?

[Luminal]

During some process prior to this very moment in which I am typing this, energy was somehow brought into existence in this Universe. Or I wouldn't be typing this.

 

That directly indicates that there is a physical process capable of bringing energy into existence (or into the Universe from an "outside" source, at least), does it not?

 

Even if this process occurred (or occurs) outside of the space-time continuum and thus has no causal origin, the process still is possible.

 

And since there is nothing that indicates human technology will cease from rising to the level in which it can influence the "fabric" of space and time, then it is reasonable to believe that humans will one day be able to bring energy (and hence matter) into existence (or as I said, from some source "outside" the Universe).

 

Either way, if the Universe created its on energy or imported it, the First Law of Thermodynamics is incorrect.

[Klaynos]

There is no outside the universe, the universe contains everything that can be interacted with... That is in fact it's definition...

 

Our laws of physics don't work for the big bang, for one thing, it's a singularity, which just doesn't work... Our theories are incomplete.

[Luminal]

There is no outside the universe, the universe contains everything that can be interacted with... That is in fact it's definition...

 

Our laws of physics don't work for the big bang, for one thing, it's a singularity, which just doesn't work... Our theories are incomplete.

 

That is amazing news.

 

Assuming human beings eventually possess technology in which they could interact with and/or control singularities, they could possibly generate matter and energy.

 

This implies humans could prevent the Universe from ending in a heat death.

 

A hundred trillion (approximately) years is plenty of time for humans to acquire the technology needed to master singularities.

 

This brightens my whole day.

[D H]

Luminal, you ate some meat and vegetables to give you the energy to type the OP. The meat on your plate came from animals. Those formerly living animals ate vegetables to give them the energy to grow before ultimately ending up on your plate as a meal. The vegetables you and the meat ate soaked up sunlight to given them the energy to grow before ultimately ending up on your plate as a meal. Nowhere in this process has energy been created. Your calories come from sunshine.

 

What about those solar photons? The sunlight that hits the Earth at some point in time was emitted by the sun 8 minutes earlier. Those sun emits those photons because it is hot. No energy created here, either: Heat is a form of energy. Where did those photons come from? They bounced around inside the sun in a random walk.

 

17,000 years or so earlier, a chain of nuclear fusion events produced helium from hydrogen and released some very high-energy photons as by-products. Some nearby hydrogen nucleii absorbed those high-energy protons and readmitted them at a lower frequency. Eventually all that bouncing around brought the absorbed/emitted/absorbed/emitted photons to the suns surface, then to the surface of the Earth, and eventually to your dinner plate.

 

Even the fusion reaction that initially created your dinner 17,000 years ago did not create energy. Mass is energy, as evidenced by the famous equation E=Mc².

[bascule]

During some process prior to this very moment in which I am typing this, energy was somehow brought into existence in this Universe. Or I wouldn't be typing this.

 

How do you know energy hasn't always existed?

 

How can existence have a cause? Wouldn't that cause have to exist?

[Luminal]

Luminal, you ate some meat and vegetables to give you the energy to type the OP. The meat on your plate came from animals. Those formerly living animals ate vegetables to give them the energy to grow before ultimately ending up on your plate as a meal. The vegetables you and the meat ate soaked up sunlight to given them the energy to grow before ultimately ending up on your plate as a meal. Nowhere in this process has energy been created. Your calories come from sunshine.

 

What about those solar photons? The sunlight that hits the Earth at some point in time was emitted by the sun 8 minutes earlier. Those sun emits those photons because it is hot. No energy created here, either: Heat is a form of energy. Where did those photons come from? They bounced around inside the sun in a random walk.

 

17,000 years or so earlier, a chain of nuclear fusion events produced helium from hydrogen and released some very high-energy photons as by-products. Some nearby hydrogen nucleii absorbed those high-energy protons and readmitted them at a lower frequency. Eventually all that bouncing around brought the absorbed/emitted/absorbed/emitted photons to the suns surface, then to the surface of the Earth, and eventually to your dinner plate.

 

Even the fusion reaction that initially created your dinner 17,000 years ago did not create energy. Mass is energy, as evidenced by the famous equation E=Mc².

 

Yes, I know. My post is in regard to the Big Bang.

 

How do you know energy hasn't always existed?

 

How can existence have a cause? Wouldn't that cause have to exist?

 

For energy to have always existed, space and time would have always needed to exist as well. I do not believe this is the current understanding of the Big Bang. I'm under the impression that energy was brought into being as a byproduct of the Universe coming into being.

 

And if energy has always existed, what determined the amount in the Universe? How could the value be completely arbitrary? I believe the answer is beyond "Some utterly random amount of energy has always existed."

 

Think about it in reverse. If all the space in the Universe shrunk and eventually ceased to exist completely, would not the energy inside the Universe also cease to exist, as it had nowhere to go? Likewise, as space expands, could not the amount of energy in the Universe increase along with it, since there was more "elbow room" for the energy to exist?

[MrSandman]

Well notice it's a theory then try and prove it wrong scienctifically. It isn't possible, that's why it is a law. Take for instance the law against speeding that wasn't around back then, because it didn't apply, but now it does.

[Klaynos]

I do not believe this is the current understanding of the Big Bang. I'm under the impression that energy was brought into being as a byproduct of the Universe coming into being.

 

I'm pretty sure that if you ask most astrophysicists they'll tell you that "we just don't know"...

[swansont]

Conservation of energy is a consequence of the laws of physics not changing over time. Change the laws (or the constants) and the total energy will change. If the big bang represents such a change, then energy would not need to be conserved during that event.

[Luminal]

Conservation of energy is a consequence of the laws of physics not changing over time. Change the laws (or the constants) and the total energy will change. If the big bang represents such a change, then energy would not need to be conserved during that event.

 

If the laws/constants can be changed, how are they laws/constants? That would make them more of "general guidelines" for non-singularities.

[swansont]

If the laws/constants can be changed, how are they laws/constants? That would make them more of "general guidelines" for non-singularities.

 

Take it up with the semantics department. So far as we can tell, they haven't changed since that point. What happened before is another issue, and most scientists don't seem to have any trouble with the terminology being applied that way.

[Spyman]

Either way, if the Universe created its on energy or imported it, the First Law of Thermodynamics is incorrect.

Since the First Law of Thermodynamics has never been observed to be incorrect, there is more reason to belive that the Universe did NOT create or import its energy.

 

In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves. Any particular conservation law is a mathematical identity to certain symmetry of a physical system. A partial listing of conservation laws that are said to be exact laws, or more precisely have never been shown to be violated:

- Conservation of energy

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

 

In physics, the conservation of energy states that the total amount of energy in any closed system remains constant but can be recreated, although it may change forms, e.g. friction turns kinetic energy into thermal energy. In thermodynamics, the first law of thermodynamics is a statement of the conservation of energy for thermodynamic systems, and is the more encompassing version of the conservation of energy. In short, the law of conservation of energy states that energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another, such as when electrical energy is changed into heat energy.

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

 

 

For energy to have always existed, space and time would have always needed to exist as well. I do not believe this is the current understanding of the Big Bang. I'm under the impression that energy was brought into being as a byproduct of the Universe coming into being.

While it's OK to have your own opinion, it's also good to know the science mainstream opinion...

 

Where Klaynos is correct, The Big Bang Theory does NOT include any creation part:

 

The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the universe whose primary assertion is that the universe has expanded into its current state from a primordial condition of enormous density and temperature.

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

 

 

If the laws/constants can be changed, how are they laws/constants? That would make them more of "general guidelines" for non-singularities.

YOU are the one proposing that they can change, and that has NEVER been observed.

 

 

 

Well notice it's a theory then try and prove it wrong scienctifically. It isn't possible, that's why it is a law. Take for instance the law against speeding that wasn't around back then, because it didn't apply, but now it does.

There is a HUGE difference between a physical law, a scientific theory and a goverment law...

 

A physical law like energy conservation has never been observed to be violated.

 

A scientific theory can only be proved wrong and is only valid until observation shows it to be wrong.

 

A goverment law is not true or false, they are rules of how to behave, speeding law don't stop to apply because a sportscar goes to fast, and there is nothing in Nature that prevents the car from speeding.

(If caught, the driver might get punished with a speeding ticket, since those rules are there for a reason.)

 

A physical law, scientific law, or a law of nature is a scientific generalization based on empirical observations of physical behavior. Empirical laws are typically conclusions based on repeated scientific experiments over many years, and which have become accepted universally within the scientific community. The production of a summary description of nature in the form of such laws is a fundamental aim of science.

 

Laws of nature are distinct from the law, either religious or civil, and should not be confused with the concept of natural law.

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

 

In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation.

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

[MrSandman]

It is based on empirical obeservation, they have tried to see if they could destroy matter, but they can't from that also the Law of Definite Porportions:

 

A compound always contains elements in certain definite proportions, never in any other combination; also called the law of constant composition

 

It is concrete enough to be law. Your definition of theory isn't quite right, because it has several definitions.

 

Theory:

 

a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of ...

 

hypothesis: a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was ...

a belief that can guide behavior; "the architect has a theory that more is less"; "they killed him on the theory that dead men tell no tales"

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

 

The word theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion.

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

[insane_alien]

...they have tried to see if they could destroy matter, but they can't...

 

never heard of anti-matter have you?

[MrSandman]

No I haven't, but matter cannot be created or destroyed. You know I'm right search you feelings. There's no such thing as anti-matter. It could break apart matter and the matter would just go somewhere else, but it is still there. You can make it turn to nothing.

[insane_alien]

uhh... seriously look up antimatter. it DOES exist and not just in star trek either. and my feelings on the subject bear no relation to the validity of any matter. matter can easily be converted to energy.

[Royston]

No I haven't, but matter cannot be created or destroyed. You know I'm right search you feelings. There's no such thing as anti-matter. It could break apart matter and the matter would just go somewhere else, but it is still there. You can make it turn to nothing.

 

Energy can't be created or destroyed, not matter. As IA said, anti-matter certainly does exist. Take a look here...

 

http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/livefromcern/antimatter/

[Luminal]

Since the First Law of Thermodynamics has never been observed to be incorrect, there is more reason to belive that the Universe did NOT create or import its energy.

 

In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves. Any particular conservation law is a mathematical identity to certain symmetry of a physical system. A partial listing of conservation laws that are said to be exact laws, or more precisely have never been shown to be violated:

- Conservation of energy

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

 

In physics, the conservation of energy states that the total amount of energy in any closed system remains constant but can be recreated, although it may change forms, e.g. friction turns kinetic energy into thermal energy. In thermodynamics, the first law of thermodynamics is a statement of the conservation of energy for thermodynamic systems, and is the more encompassing version of the conservation of energy. In short, the law of conservation of energy states that energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another, such as when electrical energy is changed into heat energy.

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

 

 

 

While it's OK to have your own opinion, it's also good to know the science mainstream opinion...

 

Where Klaynos is correct, The Big Bang Theory does NOT include any creation part:

 

The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the universe whose primary assertion is that the universe has expanded into its current state from a primordial condition of enormous density and temperature.

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

 

Let's get to the crux of the matter. Either energy has always existed; was created during the birth of the Universe; or was brought about in "another reality" in which our logic, causality and laws do not and cannot apply.

 

As I've said, if it has always existed, what determined the arbitrary amount of energy that is contained in the Universe? Why not just enough energy for one particle to form... or enough energy for a Universe 10^500 larger?

 

For that matter... what determined any of the constants and laws?

 

I believe it is naive to claim that every constant, every law, and even the amount of energy in the Universe has always existed exactly the way it is today.

 

I liken that thought process to the geocentric model of the Universe before modern times. "After all, it looks like everything is spinning around Earth and there's nothing we can observe to contradict that... so I guess it must be."

 

YOU are the one proposing that they can change, and that has NEVER been observed.

 

Actually, the post I was responding to implied that. Although, I believe it to be the case as well.

[swansont]

Since the First Law of Thermodynamics has never been observed to be incorrect, there is more reason to belive that the Universe did NOT create or import its energy.

 

In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves. Any particular conservation law is a mathematical identity to certain symmetry of a physical system. A partial listing of conservation laws that are said to be exact laws, or more precisely have never been shown to be violated:

- Conservation of energy

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

 

That we have never observed a violation of the first law has to include the disclaimer that we can only look back (AFAIK) as far as the beginning of the universe.

 

One can argue that the big bang breaks the aforementioned symmetry. I know there have been investigations into trying to discern the state of things before the big bang, or see if that's even possible, but I'm not sure of the status of them. Given the evidence of which I am aware, I think it's an unsupported extrapolation to say that energy is conserved over that boundary, though I'm happy to learn more on the topic.

[Klaynos]

As I've said, if it has always existed, what determined the arbitrary amount of energy that is contained in the Universe? Why not just enough energy for one particle to form... or enough energy for a Universe 10^500 larger?

 

For that matter... what determined any of the constants and laws?

 

We don't know... There are several ideas about it, one of which I quite like is to do with blackholes... bit busy atm, but if I remember I'll look up the link...

 

As I've said, if it has always existed, what determined the arbitrary amount of energy that is contained in the Universe? Why not just enough energy for one particle to form... or enough energy for a Universe 10^500 larger?

 

For that matter... what determined any of the constants and laws?

 

We don't know... There are several ideas about it, one of which I quite like is to do with blackholes... bit busy atm, but if I remember I'll look up the link...

[foodchain]

Let's get to the crux of the matter. Either energy has always existed; was created during the birth of the Universe; or was brought about in "another reality" in which our logic, causality and laws do not and cannot apply.

 

As I've said, if it has always existed, what determined the arbitrary amount of energy that is contained in the Universe? Why not just enough energy for one particle to form... or enough energy for a Universe 10^500 larger?

 

For that matter... what determined any of the constants and laws?

 

I believe it is naive to claim that every constant, every law, and even the amount of energy in the Universe has always existed exactly the way it is today.

 

I liken that thought process to the geocentric model of the Universe before modern times. "After all, it looks like everything is spinning around Earth and there's nothing we can observe to contradict that... so I guess it must be."

 

 

 

Actually, the post I was responding to implied that. Although, I believe it to be the case as well.

 

I don’t know why we assume much anything really on the matter. It would seem from our current physical laws that conservation of energy does indeed exist, in that stuff cant be created nor destroyed basically. Trying to define the stuff perfectly is illusive I think if I understand modern physics. I mean when someone says matter, its not perfect or black or white. I think interesting studies are with the concept of co-evolution in regards to black holes and galaxies in a sort of progressive method of observation coordinating with time. In that dark matter seems to be present in some form or function with galaxies that I guess coincides with black holes that are for the most part actually invisible balls of mass of a great many magnitudes of mass more then our star or sun. That all on its own can toss quite a buzz at me more so when the QM reality to the classical of the black hole is not really all that defined past say hawking radiation, if I have my notes right. I think of the ideas of that was anti particle/particle pairs coming to bear at the event horizon? So to me definitely some weird QM stuff going on it would seem at that point, but then again how many properties do black holes and dark stuff like dark matter and energy even have in common? Its all terribly interesting but I do agree that what ever fate the universe as we know it will come to experience in time will have to be combated by whatever life is like at the time. Maybe life will just eventually envelope the universe. That would be weird to think about, cellular or what not or biologic control of QM or what not.

[MrSandman]

Well in respone to AI I will look at it latter, but I'm for now still saying matter cannot be created or destroyed. It can't it is a LAW. Antimatter maybe can create matter into energy, but the matter is still there. You get my point?

[Klaynos]

Well in respone to AI I will look at it latter, but I'm for now still saying matter cannot be created or destroyed. It can't it is a LAW. Antimatter maybe can create matter into energy, but the matter is still there. You get my point?

 

I think what you are getting at is...

 

Mass-Energy is conserved.... So mass is just another form of energy, so it's just energy conservation.

[MrSandman]

Yes, and the light clicks for you my friend. You see my point exactly.

[swansont]

Well in respone to AI I will look at it latter, but I'm for now still saying matter cannot be created or destroyed. It can't it is a LAW. Antimatter maybe can create matter into energy, but the matter is still there. You get my point?

 

Matter and energy are different things. Mass and matter are not interchangeable terms.