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Is energy conserved in a Universe with dark energy? (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]
“If you put yourself in a position where you have to stretch outside your comfort zone, then you are forced to expand your consciousness.” -Les Brown
On the one hand, you’ve got gravitation, the most powerful force in the Universe, trying to attract all the matter in it together. If it had its way, not only would everything eventually merge together, but the Universe itself would recollapse!
Image credit: Eugenio Bianchi, Carlo Rovelli & Rocky Kolb, modifications by me.
But on the other hand, the Universe is not only expanding, but that expansion is accelerating, thanks to the presence of dark energy, an intrinsic energy to empty space itself.
Image credit: Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, NSF, DOE, and AURA.
But if space is expanding, then aren’t we simply making new, empty space out of nothing, when there was none before? And wouldn’t that violate the conservation of energy?
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2014/02/21/is-energy-conserved-in-a-universe-with-dark-energy-synopsis/
