This is basically to Orac. With the long thread that came down to a question of the conservation of energy I had a question pop into my head. First: I fully believe that conservation of energy is real, that is not my question.

My question. Is there any current research to prove the conservation of energy? Obviously most scientists just assume that it is true and use it in their research. Then if there was an anomaly that they couldn't explain except by a failure of conservation of energy they might very tentatively suggest that it had happened. That would be a very unlikely event.

But there are people out there who are working on all kinds of strange things and I thought there might be somebody still working on demonstrating conservation in ever finer detail.

Bill Gill

Ok let me start with two comments.

1.) If you don't accept there is a god then by definition you must believe that conservation of energy can be violated because we have a universe and to get here it had to be violated.

2.) In QM conservation of energy is not absolute because we have uncertaintity principle for very small QM fluctuation time you can borrow energy so long as it is not measured or observed. We see this most dramatically in quantum tunnelling and in quark behaviour inside atoms and in things like nuetrino oscillations.

So in answer to your question within QM this is most certainly studied and researched and heavily thought about.

With the advent of attosecond timing within the last two years there has been keen interest in looking very very closely at quantum tunnelling

This might provide some interesting reading

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/timing-quantum-tunneling-to-attosecond-precision/

At a "macro" level there is almost no interest in conservation of energy aside from a few fringe scientists who believe in the whole perpetual energy thing. As you know there are no "macro" level theories that are compatable with allowing violation of conservation of energy or perpetual energy.

Around now the whole "macro" versus QM result should be ringing a familiar alarm bell like say GR/SR versus QM. Two seemily different interpretations that somehow manage to coexist seemlessly in the world.

You probably can see there is one factor we understand little about but is vital in both interpretations our friend TIME.

Infact if we rewrite things a little different it becomes even more obvious

QM => The conservation of energy in time is a well defined and can not be violated.

GR/SR => The conservation of energy in spacetime is well defined and can not be violated.


Finally I will throw in one more small piece in QM there is no universal time operator there is only time within the context of the probability wave. So QM time does not have to be the same as GR/SR spacetime within an observation reference frame.

See the very small crack of possibility opening the two times may not be the same.

NASA has had a proposal to test the theory since 2004
(http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/23jan_entangled/)

I am guessing the lack of progress is something to do with the costs versus trying to convince politicians to spend alot of money to test a clock.

A very tentative sort of idea they are thinking about is can a huge gravity create a timeshift from a QM time and then borrow some energy in th QM domain and then snap the whole setup trapping the energy.

Personally I find it all a bit contrived I would like some more research with the implications of the higgs and know if dark matter/energy is real before speculating.

However as per your question theortical scientists need to think seriously about this stuff and do.

Thanks Orac. That is some good information.

Bill Gill

Please correct me if any stage of this reasoning is wrong.

1. Energy is borrowed from the vacuum energy.

2. Repayment of the energy is to the vacuum.

3. The vacuum is an integral feature of the universe.

4. If it were possible to observe the energy while it was being borrowed, it would not be where classical physics says it should be.

5. At no time does energy leave or enter the universe; therefore, conservation of energy is not violated.

Might it be no more than that the two methods of measuring time are different?

That is is almost verbatum what the consensus science view is Bill S.

There are a few maverick scientists who argue very different interpretation hence why the experiment above with trying to lock absolute times and observations.

That is one option but look carefully at the answer you yourself correctly derived about borrowed energy in quantum tunnelling.

Now we have a structural problem the law of conservation of energy seem to be absolute yet we have a universe.

Extend your thought what happens if the universe was nothing more than a large scale version of the same process.

Your own logic from above still holds ... ready

1. Energy is borrowed from the vacuum energy to form the universe.

2. Repayment of the energy is to the vacuum.

3. The vacuum is an integral feature that the universe FORMED IN.

4. Because you are formed in and with the borrowed energy in your reality the energy appears fixed and constant and creating it did not violate the law because the energy will be repayed at a fixed time.

5. At no time does energy leave or enter the universe; therefore, conservation of energy is not violated.

The logical or perhaps oscillation bounce end of the universe is it ends when it has to repay the borrowed energy. If this were real then QM time is formed when the universe borrowed energy and it will end when the universe ends.

Of coarse it's pure speculation and mumbo jumbo but it is worth thinking about because it is logical and consistant.

This may well be mumbo jumbo, it is certainly speculation, but there does seem to be a logical link to your speculation.

Universe = that which we observe, or can assume to exist as a logical extension of what we can observe.

Cosmos = everything that exists, or can exist.

I use the term “cosmos” to avoid any complication that might arise from saying that the Universe is both finite and infinite.

The Universe is finite; you have produced considerable evidence of this. Possibly its apparent finiteness could be a function of our limited ability to see anything beyond our 3+1 dimensions, but that is a side issue.

The cosmos is infinite (this includes eternal). In eternity there is no passage of time. The apparent passage of time is a feature of our restricted dimensionality.

In the dimensionality of the cosmos, everything that can happen is (happening) now.

Our Universe exists because it is eternally borrowing and repaying energy from/to the cosmos. In the frame of reference of the cosmos this is static, but we experience it as happening in linear time because we cannot see the whole picture.

You have incredible "perception" (not the right word but best I can do) Bill S and you have expressed in words a position very close to mine which took me many years of studying horrible equations and mathematics to come to.

What I am incredibly impressed with is you worked out how all the paradoxes collapse and make perfect sense without me having to explain it and show the mathematics and equations.
You even got the most QM centric part



There is a problem with my mumbo jumbo that Bill Gill would take some getting over it makes QM the most fundemental behaviour of the universe.

However from my perspective you can probably understand why I have moved over to QM as my field of study I choose to work in now.

so where did the energy come from to form the vacuum?

your starting your universe creation process with something , starting with something is not allowed when creating.



you must first have a cosmos in order for there to be a dimensionality of the cosmos.

conservation of energy tells us that.
because you cannot create energy.

so those who claim that there was no creation are thinking illogically.

also , you will never , ever , be able to prove that creation was not possible.

that is what you are attempting isnt it , orac?

try this thought experiment , using only your thoughts.

think.

I can honestly say this , although orac will not admit it
he is about to find a wall or has already found the wall that
tells him that creation is the only option.

Paul, perhaps you are short of time and are only skimming this thread. I find it difficult to believe that someone of your apparent perception would have missed the bit about the cosmos being infinite (eternal).

Something must be eternal or we would not be here discussing this. It might be God, it might be the eternal cosmos; they might be one and the same, but if there had ever been a time when there was nothing, there would still be nothing now.



You must first have a creator in order for there to be a creation.

Where did the creator come from?



Of course not! Creation is possible, as long as there is a creator. There's a stalemate situation here, though.

Non-creationists cannot prove that there was no creation. Creationists cannot prove there was/is a creator.

YOU ARE SCARING ME Bill S ... I could have and would have written that.

Have you always had that view or is it something you have worked out in our weird and whacky discussions?

You have also explained why I can not understand why religion goes to war against science they both end in the same logical place and the ultimate question can never be resolved it's a matter of faith.



If the wall above is the wall you mention, I like Bill S openly admit it. Noone will ever answer that fundemental problem because it is impossible to answer and as pointed out you face the same problem.

At that point you choose what you want to believe what feels right to you and the bottom line is science and belief in god are consistant and compatable.

neither cosmos or eternity had been mentioned before I commented on the post that first contained the quote below.

#44954 - August 23, 2012 03:01 PM


the following post you made did contain both cosmos and eternity
#45051 - Today at 09:51 AM

I can agree with this , and I find it kind of hard to believe
that Im looking at it on this science forum.




and



has someone opened the gate?

You do realise there is no comfort in those answers for you Paul.

If I apply your same requirement you are setting on science to religion and I accept there is a creator who created the creator?

This becomes the russian doll problem and it is historic within religious circles from my readings on religion.


Deductive arguments section
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God



We have done a few of those deductive argument dances if you look carefully.

The bottom line for me is unlike you I don't care why everything exists I already know the answer is impossible, I just want to want to understand how it works we call that science.

wanting to want to understand how things, nature, the cosmos works is not science.

you will never understand things if you begin your understanding
by closing doors or limiting possibilities.

science does not limit possibilities , this is why scientist are
always searching for the unknown.

while people with limited capabilities due to their logic are telling
them that they will never accomplish finding the unknown , and they will state what others have found as proof.

then after the scientist find the unknown that they were searching for and it becomes known , those who were the mockers and nay sayers will then start repeating what the scientist found.

you would not make a good scientist because your capabilities have been limited by your logic.

you make a good repeater of things that have already been discovered by people who's logic did not limit their capabilities.

you closed the door yourself.
you decided to be a follower , not a leader.

if all scientist had your logic , there would never be any more
discoveries.

I can make the same argument of you about religion infact I could do it line by line from your comment if you want?

Lets abbreviate it

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

- Have you ever seriously considered and studied the fact there may be no god
- Have you ever seriously considered and studied the fact god may have a god
- Have you ever seriously considered and studied the fact god may have limits

Your religious investigations have been limited by your religious belief?

you closed the door yourself.
you decided to be a follower , not a leader

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

See the problem with that argument Paul it cuts every way.

I understand those items will cause you a degree of distress and I did it not to be malicious but to make a very specfic point.

We all have personal views and bias and those lead to certain things we blindly accept which are totally personal.

Such biases may indeed make us wrong about the thing we blindly accept but it doesn't make us neccessarily bad at them.

Paul, your comment may have related to post #44954; but it should not be necessary for me to point out that your comment was in post #45057 which is definitely preceded by post #45051.

your right , it was not necessary for you to point that out , just like it should not be necessary for me to point out that this post is a certain number.

by looking at the post on the forum you can see that the post follow a numeric order so why should you need to point out which post followed a post?

what I was pointing out was the fact that neither of the words
cosmos or eternity had been mentioned until your post that was
in between oracs post and my post that you posted.

then you understand incorrectly orac , you are you and I am I

I am not troubled by things you write!
certainly not distressed.

I do enjoy reading what you write very much , I also enjoy
watching science fiction.

so I have a wide array of things that I enjoy.

but to me what I enjoy most about what you write is when
you begin to get irate about what other people believe in.

like its any of your business what people believe in.

science does not work on a belief system it works on a fact gathering and experimentation system and records those gathered
facts into a data system made up of that gathered experimental data.

science does not rant about religion.

in science we do not focus on the spiritual realm.
likewise in religion we do not focus on the physical realm.

to me you seem to be childish when you mainly concern yourself with others religion.

this is a science forum , if you feel the need to rant about the spiritual realm you should find a spiritual forum to play in.

It's nice to have one's rightness recognised occasionally.



Exactly. You make my point for me with absolute precision.



?????

this is what you saw.

oracs post | my post that you posted

you just didnt see the word between in the sentence.
if you would have noticed the word between in the sentence you would have re-read the entire sentence and found your post.



this is the true meaning of the sentence.
the post that you posted was in between oracs post and my post.

oracs post | your post | my post

good try though

Lest anyone should create a link between these two quotes, I would point out that I make no claim to be able to see the future. My statement expresses my understanding of the current situation. Obviously this could change in the future if current unknowns become knowns.