Is energy infinite?

[luke]

Just as the topic title says sorry but I'm not great at science but some topics do interest me.

[Blossom]

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed but it changes it forms from one to other. this is law of conservation of energy. so we can say energy is infinite.

[imatfaal]

Blossom - does that really follow? If total energy is infinite how come I am slightly chilly in my office; surely if it was infinite, after everything else was heated up to a mad form of plasma there would still be enough energy to keep my office nice and toasty. I would be more likely to say that on a cosmological scale that total energy is zero - ie everything balances out.

[Zarnaxus]

Currently, it is uncertain whether the universe is infinite or finite. If it is infinite, I cannot find a reason why the total matter-energy within it has to be finite. Any part of that kind of universe will have a finite amount of density of matter-energy, which is why you, imatfaal, could still be slightly chilly in your office even with an infinite amount of matter-energy. Although there are some problems, like a vacuum supposedly having an infinite energy density. A singularity is also calculated to have an infinite energy density. These infinite densities, however, could just be a result of the unfinished theories and laws we use to calculate them with. In other words, with a quantum theory or supersymmetrical theory of gravity, possibly m-theory, we can maybe calculate what happens within a singularity without getting infinite densities (or infinite probability of things happening, but that's a different story).

 

 

[guitarborist]

I've never like it when someone 'questions a question' but I'll be guitly of it:

 

Without a grand unified theory, we aren't even sure what energy is. Also 'infinite' needs to be defined.

 

Context is needed to answer the question. The answers above make sense in their own context.

[alpha2cen]

If energy were infinite, we could not state the fractions of matter, Dark Matter and Dark energy in the Universe.

The theory is based on the concept that the total Universe energy is finite.

[cosmic rain]

100 years ago the popular belief in science was that the physical universe was infinite in all directions. The science is called plasma physics, and is better known today as the steady state theory.

 

 

 

Einstein proposed a definition for the space-time continuum in the steady state theory as the material universe extending for infinity into the past without beginning, and forward into the future without end.

 

 

 

If you believe this definition is correct, then you are considered to be a steady state theorist who doesn’t believe in the big bang. You would explain the evidence of the microwave background as low temperature hydrogen, and you would believe energy is infinite.