Where Does Energy Originate?

[Drakkith]

The quantum fluctuation that caused the big bang came from nothing and the vacuum energy of space from which the virtual particles borrow their energy works out mathematically to be zero (nothing). Its to do with symmetry, something and nothing will cancel out. It took me a while to comprehend it but when the penny dropped it all became clear.

Why would the vacuum energy of space be "nothing"?

 

[bluey]

I was under the impression that physicsts to not pretend to know WHAT caused the events at the singularity. Do you have citations for this?

You have spelled physicists wrong! Don't be lazy,google it yourself.

 

[Chronos]

That is a strawman argument and irrelevant. Try the philosophy forum.

 

[bluey]

That is a strawman argument and irrelevant. Try the philosophy forum.

Exactly!

 

[Chronos]

So, what are you attempting to accomplish on this forum? Were I a Mentor this thread would have been immediately closed as irrelevant to scientific inquiry.

 

[aishwariya]

The whole universes energy is borrowed.just like virtual particles emerge from nothing i think.

Quantum cosmology

 

[Whovian]

The whole universes energy is borrowed.just like virtual particles emerge from nothing i think.

Quantum cosmology

Okay. That's one theory, which comes from a complete misinterpretation of QM. See https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=511176

You have spelled physicists wrong! Don't be lazy,google it yourself.

Don't insult Phinds!

 

[phinds]

You have spelled physicists wrong! Don't be lazy,google it yourself.

It was a slip of the figner

 

[tiny-tim]

It was a slip of the figner

a figner rotation

 

[PhanthomJay]

Does anyone listen to Hawking anymore? We have 'something' rather than 'nothing' due to physical laws of gravity and quantum theory that govern our universe. Perhaps not other universes, of which there could exist an infinite number, per M-Theory, which Hawking has adopted as the only theory that will lead to the theory of everything, if, in fact, such a theory can ever be found.

Infinity and Nothing can be comprehended mathematically, but not physically. Unless, you come to the inevitable conclusion, perhaps pseudo scientifically, I am afraid, as I have, that Something and Nothing are one and the same, just different manifestations of each other.

 

[twofish-quant]

I do believe in those laws so far they've been the fundamental laws of physics. However, we use physics mostly to answer questions now the BIG question is left un answered where does energy come from?

Energy comes from math...

There is something called Noether's theorem. The idea is that if you have a set of rules with a symmetry, there will be a number that stays the same. So it turns out that the rules of physics are time-invariant. If you do a physics experiment and you do them same experiment yesterday or tomorrow, you will get the same results.

Once you've established that, then it follows that there will be some number that will stay the same. That number is energy.

Since now they believe in the BigBang"Universe from nothingness" then that violates the laws since energy can't come from nothingness?

1) They don't. The standard model of cosmology says *nothing* about what happened at event zero.
2) You only get conservation of energy if the rules of physics don't change. If the rules change, energy is not conserved. We have good reasons to believe that the rules of physics didn't change after "event zero", but at "event zero" it could have changed radically.

Give me some sense people I'm kinda lost. Have people thought of this before or just choose to neglect it?

Yes, lot of people have thought of it.

 

[twofish-quant]

The quantum fluctuation that caused the big bang came from nothing and the vacuum energy of space from which the virtual particles borrow their energy works out mathematically to be zero (nothing).

Someone needs to have a talk with Lawerence Krauss. Apparently he has been giving talks on this idea of the "universe from nothing."

1) Krauss gets a lot of his cosmology *WRONG* - There are *big* problems with this virtual particle causing the big bang idea. The basic problem is that there are some very strict rules about when you can have a virtual particle, and no one has come close to showing that the big bang can come from those rules.

The other problem is that a) it's really hard to define the "total energy of the universe" and b) any reasonable definition is going to give you a number other than zero

2) Where he doesn't get things wrong, he give people the impression that he is talking about settled science rather than his personal opinions (which as far as I can tell have not be peer reviewed). It doesn't help that Richard Dawkins is spreading Krauss's ideas.

Sigh... For the good old days when we just had to worry about young Earth creationists spreading misinformation.

 

[twofish-quant]

I mean what DO ALL OF YOU think about energy and where it came from? Honestly its just mind blowing when you study more about it.

Yes, and the conclusion that I have come up with is "I don't know."

 

[twofish-quant]

I was under the impression that physicsts to not pretend to know WHAT caused the events at the singularity. Do you have citations for this?

He doesn't, but I do...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/145162445X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

It's a dreadful book, because it gets it's cosmology wrong.

 

[bluey]

He doesn't, but I do...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/145162445X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

It's a dreadful book, because it gets it's cosmology wrong.

I beg to differ, I read the book and it made sense to me,where else would I have gotten the idea? Actually it reminds me of the nascent times of plate tectonics,now with the benefit of hindsight it is obvious. Anyway its early days,a bit more research and who knows?

 

[twofish-quant]

I beg to differ, I read the book and it made sense to me,where else would I have gotten the idea?

That's precisely the problem. It makes perfect sense to people who aren't cosmology experts but it's scientifically *WRONG*.

One thing about Krauss is that he does seem to have written some quite good papers on cosmology, but the ideas in that book have not be peer reviewed, so 1) they don't represent the scientific consensus and 2) he gets some things *WRONG*.

Actually it reminds me of the nascent times of plate tectonics,now with the benefit of hindsight it is obvious. Anyway its early days,a bit more research and who knows?

It's not in it's early days. Tryon first suggested it in 1973. The problem with this idea is that there are lots of restrictions on what sort of vacuum fluctuations can form and what one's can't. We see virtual particles every day, but we don't see big bangs. You can argue that the big bang is a magic vacuum fluctuation, but that's barely better than saying "God did it."

Also there is a big difference between personal speculation and scientific consensus, and people that write popular books should make it clear what they are saying.

 

[bluey]

Krauss is a cosmology expert and I don't see how he can get it so wrong and Edward Tryon too for that matter.there is a scientific consensus out there and Krauss is crazy enough and tough enough to back it and promote it publicly.

 

[twofish-quant]

Krauss is a cosmology expert and I don't see how he can get it so wrong

That's the problem. Also if you want to get into a credential war, my specialty isn't cosmology but I do have a doctorate in theoretical astrophysics, and I can say that Krauss gets his cosmology *very wrong*.

The universe is not in a zero-energy state. It's just not.

There is a scientific consensus out there and Krauss is crazy enough and tough enough to back it and promote it publicly.

Sigh...

This is just not true. There is absolutely no consensus on what happened pre-inflation. There are about a dozen ideas. Krauss is entitled to his own opinions, but his opinions on this topic carry no more weight than yours or mine.

 

[bluey]

Krauss carries more weight than you or I because he is an expert in his field,for you to say he is very wrong and its just not true carries no weight whatsoever in the scheme of things,the only alternative argument (as weak as it is)I have heard has come from theology.

 

[Whovian]

Krauss carries more weight than you or I because he is an expert in his field,for you to say he is very wrong and its just not true carries no weight whatsoever in the scheme of things,the only alternative argument (as weak as it is)I have heard has come from theology.

Ugh ...

And I'd say that Krauss's argument's even weaker because it isn't exactly accurate with Quantum Mechanics.

And there's one more alternative argument, probably more accepted. That the Big Bang was the start of time, so thinking about before it is invalid.

And there's that argument again. "Experts cannot do wrong."

 

[Farahday]

Okay... For he last 3 months I've been studying energy back to back with undergoing all the laws that supports it.

Two famous laws "Thermodynamics" + "Law of Conservation" both state that ENERGY CAN NOT BE CREATED OR DESTROYED, ok makes sense because so far everything on this universe follows it. But then I ask my self then where did it come from? Now philosophy is applied to this question to give a reasonable answer.

I do believe in those laws so far they've been the fundamental laws of physics. However, we use physics mostly to answer questions now the BIG question is left un answered where does energy come from?

Since now they believe in the BigBang"Universe from nothingness" then that violates the laws since energy can't come from nothingness?

Im left out here confused in the end of the day wondering why? or how?...

I believe their is something missing from the equation for something not logical at all...

Give me some sense people I'm kinda lost. Have people thought of this before or just choose to neglect it?

There are two basic phenomena in the cosmos
1) Existence
2) Change
Energy is the potential or kinetic ability to cause change.
Since something must exist in order to be changed, change (energy) is a function of existence.
BTW - if change is a function of existence, the cosmos wasn't created. Existence is not the result of cause and effect (change) - just the opposite is true, existence is the source of cause and effect.
Too bad contemporary science has not recognized this simple axiom.

 

[SHISHKABOB]

Krauss carries more weight than you or I because he is an expert in his field,for you to say he is very wrong and its just not true carries no weight whatsoever in the scheme of things,the only alternative argument (as weak as it is)I have heard has come from theology.

bluey, twofish-quant just said that there's a good number of ideas about what happened before inflation. Those would be alternative arguments. Have you read about those and determined that they are not good arguments? Or have you only read this book by this guy who apparently has bad science in his book?

I have never read the book, and I don't know cosmology either. But if a guy with a doctorate in theoretical astrophysics is telling me that there are things that are wrong in a book, then I will believe him. I'd also like to understand what exactly is wrong, but I don't have a lot of knowledge about cosmology, GR, etc. in the first place, so I'd better learn those things first.

 

[twofish-quant]

Krauss carries more weight than you or I because he is an expert in his field,for you to say he is very wrong and its just not true carries no weight whatsoever in the scheme of things

I''m also an expert in astrophysics theory. There are people on this list who know more cosmology than I do, so if they say I'm wrong, I'll defer to them.

Basically,

1) WMAP results show that the universe has dark energy. If you have dark energy, that means that the total content of the universe not zero.

2) I'm trying to come up with an argument that non-technical people can follow that's better than "just trust me" about "virtual particles." Basically, if you take an introductory book to particle physics (say Aitchison and Hey's Gauge Theories in Particle Physics) most of the book involves the rules that you need to calculate virtual particle interactions, and you just can't have "something come out of nothing." For example, if you want an electron to appear, the charge conservation says that you always have to have an anti-electron.

Having a particle appear out of nowhere with the gravitational field to negate the energy has never been observed. Yes, you *could* argue that it happens by magic, but then that weakens the argument considerably.

3) Krauss's ideas are a rough guess, but they are *NOT* any sort of scientific consensus. One thing that seriously worries me is that by giving speeches on things that aren't consensus views, he ends up discrediting things that are. For example, we know that there was a "big bang" 13.9 billion years ago, and we can trace the history up until t=10^-52 seconds after time zero. At 10^-52 seconds, our theories break down.

the only alternative argument (as weak as it is)I have heard has come from theology.

One thing about scientists is that scientists are more likely to say "I don't know."

One other problem with Krauss, is that by presenting his ideas as "the consensus view" he doesn't talk about the dozen or so other ideas that people have had for what happened at t=0, for example. You can google the terms in quotes

Leo Smolin's "cosmological natural selection" - universes are created by black holes
The "ekpyrotic universe" - universes are created by colliding membranes
Various "cylic models" - Baum-Frampton and Steinhardt–Turok - universes are created by orbiting membrane
"loop quantum gravity" - the universe was always here but when you compress things a lot, gravity turns repulsive
the "eternal inflation" model - the universe is this constant expanding field and pops out.

This is an area of active research, and where I very, very strongly object to is Krauss giving the impression that people have come to a consensus about what is going on. Right now, everyone is guessing and there is no scientific consensus.

I ***hate*** argument by authority, and I'm trying to figure out how to convince you without saying "trust me" or pointing you to ten pages of equations that you can't read.

But, I've just given five scenarios for creating the universe that are scientifically viable at this point, so at the least, Krauss's book is very flawed because he has your attention for several hundred pages without pointing out that there are scenarios for time less than zero other than the one he presents.

Once I've convinced you that there *are* other scenarios for starting the universe, and that Krauss is at least remiss for not mentioning them, then you can ask yourself *why* people are looking for these alternative scenarios. If we've got "everything figured out" then why are people coming up with new ideas. The answer is that we haven't got everything figured out, and the scenario that Krauss presents has some pretty major flaws.

The other thing is that I did a literature search on Krauss (http://adswww.harvard.edu/) and while he has written excellent papers in cosmology, he has as far as I can tell, never written a peer-reviewed paper on what he talks about in his book. If he did, the reviewers would likely rip the paper to shreds.

The thing about scientists, is that when speaking in a public forum, they need to be very careful to separate what is consensus from what is personal speculation, because people like you can't tell. It's great that Krauss is thinking about these things, but it's a very, very, very bad thing that he hasn't made clearer what is personal speculation, and what is accepted consensus.

 

[twofish-quant]

Also one thing that I'm looking for, is some sort of review paper that will outline the major pre-big bang scenarios, and their current viability.

 

[Mark M]

Too add to the above comments, there are many, many models besides Krauss' idea of quantum cosmology that are just as viable scenarios. Here is an overview of pre-big bang string cosmology:

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9907067

An introduction of to Loop Quantum Cosmology:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.5160

Sean Carroll's model:

http://arxiv.org/abs/hepth/0410270

Just to name a few. Also note that these models are also authored by cosmologists too, so the fact that Krauss is a cosmologist doesn't automatically validate his scenario.

 

[bluey]

I''m also an expert in astrophysics theory. There are people on this list who know more cosmology than I do, so if they say I'm wrong, I'll defer to them.

Basically,

1) WMAP results show that the universe has dark energy. If you have dark energy, that means that the total content of the universe not zero.

2) I'm trying to come up with an argument that non-technical people can follow that's better than "just trust me" about "virtual particles." Basically, if you take an introductory book to particle physics (say Aitchison and Hey's Gauge Theories in Particle Physics) most of the book involves the rules that you need to calculate virtual particle interactions, and you just can't have "something come out of nothing." For example, if you want an electron to appear, the charge conservation says that you always have to have an anti-electron.

Having a particle appear out of nowhere with the gravitational field to negate the energy has never been observed. Yes, you *could* argue that it happens by magic, but then that weakens the argument considerably.

3) Krauss's ideas are a rough guess, but they are *NOT* any sort of scientific consensus. One thing that seriously worries me is that by giving speeches on things that aren't consensus views, he ends up discrediting things that are. For example, we know that there was a "big bang" 13.9 billion years ago, and we can trace the history up until t=10^-52 seconds after time zero. At 10^-52 seconds, our theories break down.



One thing about scientists is that scientists are more likely to say "I don't know."

One other problem with Krauss, is that by presenting his ideas as "the consensus view" he doesn't talk about the dozen or so other ideas that people have had for what happened at t=0, for example. You can google the terms in quotes

Leo Smolin's "cosmological natural selection" - universes are created by black holes
The "ekpyrotic universe" - universes are created by colliding membranes
Various "cylic models" - Baum-Frampton and Steinhardt–Turok - universes are created by orbiting membrane
"loop quantum gravity" - the universe was always here but when you compress things a lot, gravity turns repulsive
the "eternal inflation" model - the universe is this constant expanding field and pops out.

This is an area of active research, and where I very, very strongly object to is Krauss giving the impression that people have come to a consensus about what is going on. Right now, everyone is guessing and there is no scientific consensus.

I ***hate*** argument by authority, and I'm trying to figure out how to convince you without saying "trust me" or pointing you to ten pages of equations that you can't read.

But, I've just given five scenarios for creating the universe that are scientifically viable at this point, so at the least, Krauss's book is very flawed because he has your attention for several hundred pages without pointing out that there are scenarios for time less than zero other than the one he presents.

Once I've convinced you that there *are* other scenarios for starting the universe, and that Krauss is at least remiss for not mentioning them, then you can ask yourself *why* people are looking for these alternative scenarios. If we've got "everything figured out" then why are people coming up with new ideas. The answer is that we haven't got everything figured out, and the scenario that Krauss presents has some pretty major flaws.

The other thing is that I did a literature search on Krauss (http://adswww.harvard.edu/) and while he has written excellent papers in cosmology, he has as far as I can tell, never written a peer-reviewed paper on what he talks about in his book. If he did, the reviewers would likely rip the paper to shreds.

The thing about scientists, is that when speaking in a public forum, they need to be very careful to separate what is consensus from what is personal speculation, because people like you can't tell. It's great that Krauss is thinking about these things, but it's a very, very, very bad thing that he hasn't made clearer what is personal speculation, and what is accepted consensus.

Lets look at an analogy here,I post on a forum that I have a brain tumor and seek advice on a neurosurgeons new technique that he has written a book about.no-one it seems is against it except for a patronizing ear nose and throat specialist who thinks everyone is below his intelligents if they don't follow his point of view but strangely there are no objections from other neurosurgeons?

 

[twofish-quant]

Lets look at an analogy here,I post on a forum that I have a brain tumor and seek advice on a neurosurgeons new technique that he has written a book about.no-one it seems is against it except for a patronizing ear nose and throat specialist who thinks everyone is below his intelligents if they don't follow his point of view but strangely there are no objections from other neurosurgeons?

Look at the thread, someone just posted a nice citation to other papers.

See also

http://blog.vixra.org/2010/09/08/kr...y-in-general-relativity-to-argue-against-god/

The actual situation is that you have a famous neurosurgeon that publishes a book with so many flaws that even an ear, nose, and throat specialist can find serious flaws with it, it got to be pretty bad. So bad in fact that most other neurosurgeons think it's a waste of time to argue against it.

Don't mistake silence for agreement.

Many people dislike religion because they dislike "argument from authority." It's ironic that you we're getting into a situation where the argument is from authority. Also "argument from personality" is also a bad heuristic. If someone is a patronizing, arrogant jerk that means that they are unpleasant, it doesn't mean that they are wrong. Maybe the doctor is being a patronizing, arrogant jerk, because they are trying to save your life (i.e. any episode of House).

There are enough papers that outline enough alternative scenarios to Krauss that I think you can conclude that:

1) there is no scientific consensus on what happened before the Big Bang
2) Krauss's book is deeply flawed for not mentioning that

My own concern is that because Krauss does a horrible job of separating personal views from scientific consensus will lead to disaster because it's quite likely that when we do figure out what's going on before the big bang, it may have nothing to do with what Krauss says. At that point people start questioning things that *are* in the scientific consensus.

 

[twofish-quant]

One other thing. Physicists and astrophysicists communicate in a way that seems confrontational and arrogant to outsiders. There are some very interesting sociolinguistic things that are going on, and I've found that I've had to very, very consciously communicate in a different way at work.

The basic issue is that one of the purposes of language is to reduce social conflict, so in day-to-day speech, people will communicate in ways that reduce social conflict. To do science it's necessary to encourage conflicting ideas, so astrophysicists will usually communicate in ways that deliberately *increase* social conflict.

Also the culture of science is such that intellectual conflict doesn't necessary correspond to social disapproval. For example, in a non-astrophysics situation, if I present an idea and then everyone starts saying how *bad* it is, that means that they don't respect me. By contrast, in an astrophysics situation, if I present an idea and people don't try to kill it, that means that I don't have much respect. (This applies to Krauss's book, the fact that it's being ignored means that it's not being respected.)

There are also linguistic cues that are different. For example, in ordinary daily life, if I strongly defend an idea, that implies that I very strongly emotionally support that idea, and there are these social cues that indicate strength of belief. One thing that will happen in astrophysics is that someone that is arguing with you will *deliberately* hide how strongly they believe something, so that you focus the argument on the idea rather than on the person. So you have people very strongly defending ideas that they don't believe in, because someone has to act as "devil's advocate." (I've found that lawyers do the same thing.)

 

[OmCheeto]

What a wonderful question.

I often ask such things.

I'm a former electrician by trade, and thought I knew how diodes worked. One day, I entered university, and it seemed there was more to their life then just a simple bias. They were filled with dopes and holes and what-not. Later, I joined a science forum and probed a bit deeper, into the quantum world of diodes. And being that I had no comprehension of the quantum world, I decided I did not know how diodes worked.

hmmm...

So where does energy come from?

To me, that's like asking where "red" came from.

Energy is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-lGKnIbNbw

 

[Chronos]

Krauss carries more weight than you or I because he is an expert in his field,for you to say he is very wrong and its just not true carries no weight whatsoever in the scheme of things,the only alternative argument (as weak as it is)I have heard has come from theology.

That is an obvious indulgence in 'appeal to authority' logic. But, of course, it was an understandable reaction to being unfairly confronted with genuine physics. So, short of admitting the possibility of error, being cryptic and vague is always appealing.

 

[bluey]

That is an obvious indulgence in 'appeal to authority' logic. But, of course, it was an understandable reaction to being unfairly confronted with genuine physics. So, short of admitting the possibility of error, being cryptic and vague is always appealing.

What has this to do with where energy comes from? I find your statement puzzling, bipolar maybe? What about instead of unfairly confronting me with genuine physics why don't you fairly confront me with these genuine physics that show me where energy comes from?

 

[Hypo]

Huh, I guess after a while this question goes deeper and deeper in our minds and leave you wondering. Welcome you all... To my world!

 

[Hypo]

What has this to do with where energy comes from? I find your statement puzzling, bipolar maybe? What about instead of unfairly confronting me with genuine physics why don't you fairly confront me with these genuine physics that show me where energy comes from?

I guess no one knows. Can't be created, nor destroyed what a major load of confusion.
Whats left is philosophy to answered what you and I can't see lol.

 

[Drakkith]

What has this to do with where energy comes from? I find your statement puzzling, bipolar maybe? What about instead of unfairly confronting me with genuine physics why don't you fairly confront me with these genuine physics that show me where energy comes from?

Energy comes from the state of a system at a point in time. It is simply the result of the way it is "setup" for lack of a better description. A ball rolling down a hill has a certain velocity with respect to a stationary object at the base of the hill. Knowing the balls mass and velocity we can find out how much "kinetic energy" the ball has, which just means we can predict how much work we can accomplish using that rolling ball. That potential to use the ball to perform work is what we call "energy".

I guess no one knows. Can't be created, nor destroyed what a major load of confusion.
Whats left is philosophy to answered what you and I can't see lol.

Personally I don't see energy as a "thing", so it cannot be created or destroyed.

 

[OmCheeto]

What has this to do with where energy comes from? I find your statement puzzling, bipolar maybe? What about instead of unfairly confronting me with genuine physics why don't you fairly confront me with these genuine physics that show me where energy comes from?

Has anyone answered my question yet? "Where does 'red' come from"?

Or should I start a new thread?

 

[scientifico]

If energy cannot be destroyed, shouldn't it be endless ?

 

[Drakkith]

If energy cannot be destroyed, shouldn't it be endless ?

Energy is not a "thing", so I don't think your question is valid. Energy is an abstract quantity that we have defined to be the ability to do work.

 

[scientifico]

yes but this ability must be something... if it only was an abstract quantity it shouldn't exist

 

[Whovian]

yes but this ability must be something... if it only was an abstract quantity it shouldn't exist

Oh? Take linear momentum as another example. It's an abstract quantity. Does it exist?

Anyway, conservation of energy is extraordinarily well tested. We have never, for example, observed two objects spontaneously jump away from each other without, for example, expending some of their energy (more than enough for energy to be conserved, since some is lost as heat in all reactions.) Would you say energy doesn't exist now?

 

[Drakkith]

yes but this ability must be something... if it only was an abstract quantity it shouldn't exist

Perhaps abstract isn't the right word to use. Wikipedia says energy is an indirectly observed quantity.

 

[OmCheeto]

Perhaps abstract isn't the right word to use. Wikipedia says energy is an indirectly observed quantity.

hmmm... That sounds familiar.

Energy is like Om's bank account. He knows it exists, but has never seen it. It magically has a higher quantity every two weeks, apparently because work has been performed on the system. It's quantity goes down over two weeks due to entropy (his excuse). Statistical observations are routinely sent to Om for study.

Prove me wrong.

 

[Hypo]

FOUND THE DEFINITION OF! "Energy" ITS! a total confusion :)

lol, I mean we just know a few little tiny facts about it that are some true and maybe some are not so... completely true, about it. Yet... We can't define it properly because: we don't understand it right lol(not fully).

 

[Drakkith]

hmmm... That sounds familiar.

Energy is like Om's bank account. He knows it exists, but has never seen it. It magically has a higher quantity every two weeks, apparently because work has been performed on the system. It's quantity goes down over two weeks due to entropy (his excuse). Statistical observations are routinely sent to Om for study.

Prove me wrong.

Omg Om you should frame this...

Edit: I'll just add it to my signature block...

 

[OmCheeto]

Omg Om you should frame this...

Edit: I'll just add it to my signature block...

Wow.

I actually was thinking about this later. I decided god must be an accountant, as both finance, and the teeny world, are quantized.

 

[scientifico]

E = mc² so if the energy is inside the matter, couldn't we produce lot of free energy from this?

 

[Whovian]

E = mc² so if the energy is inside the matter, couldn't we produce lot of free energy from this?

We'd need the same amount of antimatter to achieve this, but once that's done, while it wouldn't be free energy (we'd lose the matter,) in theory, we could.

 

[scientifico]

but we would need energy to create antimatter too?

 

[Whovian]

but we would need energy to create antimatter too?

I don't think there's any easily obtainable naturally occurring antimatter that we know of (in fact, almost no naturally occurring antimatter at all that we know of,) so yes, one would need to spend a good amount of energy to produce the antimatter (along with its respective matter.) So, unless we find antimatter, we can't really get any net gain of energy out of it.

 

[3rdHeaven]

Question: how do we know energy can not be created or destroyed?

Will there be any energy left when the last sun fades out and our universe is no more in 10^1000 trillion years from now or when ever that will be, when nothing is left again?

 

[andrewkirk]

So the point is not so much, "where did the energy come from" but rather "why does something exist rather than nothing"?

I suggest you try asking yourself "what sort of answer could there conceivably be to this question that would satisfy me". My prediction is that whatever answer you imagine will answer the 'why' by reference to something that either actually or hypothetically exists, regardless of whether we are able to observe it. But then that something is part of the something that exists, so it can't answer the question which was why there is not nothing.

It gets horribly circular and confusing. My own resolution of it is simply to conclude that it is impossible for there to be nothing, as the idea is inconceivable to us.

Given that there is something, physics is a great way of making sense of the something that there is.