Is the law of conservation of energy generally true?

Question

I know the conservation of energy can be violated for short times, but not overall. is that right?

Answer 1

Nice question. Everybody says that "energy is always and perfectly conserved", but the reality is something else. You are right, it can be "violated" for short times, within the Heisenburg uncertainity limits, and this has to be figured in calculations in quantum field theories. For example, a gauge boson could momentarily acquire energy "out of nothing" for the short time of its existence, within quantum uncertainity limits. Professional physicists know all about this, they do the math with this, but for some reason, it's not relayed to the public.

Now let's move to the more interesting stuff. Noether's theorem states that conservation of energy is a consequence of temporal symmetry. That is to say, if physical equations are invariant with respect to translation in time, then energy is conserved. However, that does not mean that everything is invariant with respect to time. In more extreme cases, at the boundary beyond "ordinary" spacetime as we know, as for example. inside black holes or at Planck dimensions of spacetime (think really tiny now, smaller than even strings), ordinary laws of physics or even time itself breaks down, and energy may not be conserved. And some important equations in physics, such as the relativistic version of the Schrodinger wave equation, called Klein-Gordon equation, energy is not conserved either. So, in answer to your question, "yes, the law of conservation of energy is generally true", because generally speaking, we're talking about ordinary spacetime with nice well behaved symmetries that we've all come to rely on for our reality, but such symmetries in fact cannot be taken for granted. There is no fundamental reason why they MUST necessarily exist in all cases, nor there is any mathematical proof of that.

Answer 2

Wow! that's a lot to chew on - that's totally almost like blending physics and philosophy. the important to "present day" physics is to point out that the regulations replace once you do issues like circulate a mass at speeds that attitude the fee of sunshine and so on. you won't be in a position to mixture the earth physics and astro physics and get a existence like effect, so be careful. as an occasion, Einstein on no account reported that mass might properly be switched over to capability, he reported that the dating between the two exist. If we could make the conversion, we could capacity the finished earth with purely waste products ala the "Mr Fusion" from lower back to the destiny action picture! besides, to respond to your question - in case you think the common regulations of thermo dynamics then you truly know that entropy is purely going one way which tells us that as some element chaos will return, yet I assume this to be long after humanity is extinct. you're extra advantageous off stressful approximately saving sufficient for retirement! immediately's the assembly of two infinities - the previous and the destiny. the two are limitless. The universe will final "forever" yet without human beings, what distinction does it make? Perpetual action is purely conceivable in a nil capability state - think of roughly satellites. shop on questioning!

Answer 3

When can it be violated over short intervals?

Energy is concerved (at least as a 4-vector) and space is homogeneous. Pretty much.

Answer 4

If our observations are not perfect and during observation if we sleep, then the law will seem to be violated during that short time of our sleep.

Answer 5

Depends on how you think about it.
If you are real famous people will believe everything you say.
Not every law has enough evidence only if you find evidence that is contradictory to the oringinal law.

Answer 6

It's totally right. look at how your gas mileage is affected when the air conditioner is on. It's totally aplicable in every day life but we usually don't think about such things.

Answer 7

Definitely it is right. You need not have to doubt that law.

Answer 8

it is true because,
Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed.

It can be converted from one form to energy .

Answer 9

Yes, otherwise it would not be called a "law". It would be called a theory or theorem.

Answer 10

yup..