- #1
Brunolem33
- 66
- 0
As I am watching the current season of How the Universe Works, I am a bit confused when listening to physicists talking about energy as if it was a thing.
The way I understand it, energy doesn't exist by itself, but is rather the result of interactions involving matter.
Energy is released, captured, released and so on.
For example, nuclear reactions in the sun release energy, some of which is captured by tree leaves, that will later on be used as fossil fuel, thus releasing energy...
But there is no energy readily available as such, in the same way that there is no wind without air and a certain set of conditions.
Having said all that, what does it mean to say that the Big Bang was a massive release of energy previously concentrated in a small point?
Or what does it mean to say that dark energy is making the universe expand?
What energy? How can there be energy without a source?
Why and how would the release of energy associated with the Big Bang create heat, and what would be heated in the first place, since there was nothing but energy to begin with?
Energy is not cold or hot, or is it?
How can energy be compressed or expand?
One can do that with air, for example, because it is matter, but it seems meaningless to talk about volume when it comes to energy
Assuming that dark energy would be part of the energy released with the Big Bang, how could it have been preserved as such for billions of years, without being absorbed by the matter around it?
So many questions...
The way I understand it, energy doesn't exist by itself, but is rather the result of interactions involving matter.
Energy is released, captured, released and so on.
For example, nuclear reactions in the sun release energy, some of which is captured by tree leaves, that will later on be used as fossil fuel, thus releasing energy...
But there is no energy readily available as such, in the same way that there is no wind without air and a certain set of conditions.
Having said all that, what does it mean to say that the Big Bang was a massive release of energy previously concentrated in a small point?
Or what does it mean to say that dark energy is making the universe expand?
What energy? How can there be energy without a source?
Why and how would the release of energy associated with the Big Bang create heat, and what would be heated in the first place, since there was nothing but energy to begin with?
Energy is not cold or hot, or is it?
How can energy be compressed or expand?
One can do that with air, for example, because it is matter, but it seems meaningless to talk about volume when it comes to energy
Assuming that dark energy would be part of the energy released with the Big Bang, how could it have been preserved as such for billions of years, without being absorbed by the matter around it?
So many questions...