If "everything is energy" then what does this mean?

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I've often heard people say that in some sense or another "everything" (whatever that is) is "energy". This confuses me, to put it bluntly. I often work with "energy" as it is "defined" (exists? described?) in modern physics, and this has not helped me understand the assertion that everything is energy. So if any members believe this and would be willing to describe what this belief means (or if any members are more knowledgeable about what this means than I) I would be grateful for an explanation as to what "everything is energy" means (e.g., what is the nature of this "energy"? why ought we to believe that everything is indeed a form of or made out of this "energy"? etc.). Thanks!

 

[ak.yonathan]

No, everything is not energy, empty space is not energy, however everything that is not empty space is energy. Personally I like to think of it as there being a dualism in reality, there exists empty space and energy, kind of like the yin-yang philosophy.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

everything that is not empty space is energy.

Could you expand on this? What is the nature of this "energy" that "everything that is not empty space" is, and what are our reasons (or is our reason) for believing this is so? Thanks!

 

[Aupmanyav]

I've often heard people say that in some sense or another "everything" (whatever that is) is "energy". This confuses me, to put it bluntly. I often work with "energy" as it is "defined" (exists? described?) in modern physics, and this has not helped me understand the assertion that everything is energy. .. (e.g., what is the nature of this "energy"? why ought we to believe that everything is indeed a form of or made out of this "energy"? etc.).

Why should it confuse you? Did we not start with a blob of energy at the time of Big Bang (according to our best guess, the Standard Model, whether Big Bang actually happened or not is another question). What else existed at that time? All that came to exist began with that only. And is not mass convertible in to energy (E = m...).

The second question is 'the nature of this energy'? What is 'the origin of this energy'? What is 'dark energy' and what is 'dark matter'? How is gravity related to it? What is the relation between 'energy', 'time' and 'space'. Does it all arise from 'absolute nothing' or it is 'eternal'? These questions are not answerable today. It will be decades, possibly even centuries before humans get the answers to these questions (most probably not in my life-time). With this situation, it is futile to make conjectures about these at this time. I leave it to future generations.

 

[Nietzsche]

I've often heard people say that in some sense or another "everything" (whatever that is) is "energy". This confuses me, to put it bluntly. I often work with "energy" as it is "defined" (exists? described?) in modern physics, and this has not helped me understand the assertion that everything is energy. So if any members believe this and would be willing to describe what this belief means (or if any members are more knowledgeable about what this means than I) I would be grateful for an explanation as to what "everything is energy" means (e.g., what is the nature of this "energy"? why ought we to believe that everything is indeed a form of or made out of this "energy"? etc.). Thanks!

Couldn't you make the claim that matter is just a phase of energy, or vice-verse?

I'm not a scientist. Clearly. Jesus christ I hope not.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Why should it confuse you? Did we not start with a blob of energy at the time of Big Bang

WE did not (and this is assuming the standards big bang cosmology, which I do, actually, as I find cosmologies based upon aspects of physics that are currently untestable to be..., well, highly speculative (this includes most inflation cosmologies).

What else existed at that time?

Time didn't exist apart from the big bang. The question is problematic because there is no "time" in the big bang cosmology that is distinct from "space". However, and perhaps more intuitively, what existed is space and time (or spacetime) and matter and energy.

And is not mass convertible in to energy (E = m...).

Great point. In your equation, E=m (with the ellipses). Only even in the simplest version of Einstein's equivalence equation (E=mc^2), energy is not equal to mass.

We take this question up very soon. Kindly wait for a few minutes.

Thanks! I look forward to your answer.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Couldn't you make the claim that matter is just a phase of energy, or vice-verse?

Not without making the notions of both paradoxical and inconsistent with modern (and classical!) physics. As Aupmanyav pointed out, at least indirectly, the conversion of mass and energy isn't one of the form E=M. Mass doesn't equal energy even in the most simplistic form of the most simplistic relativistic theory (which is incompatible with quantum theory until one gets to QFT, in which this equivalence requires the production, more or less ex nihilo, of new kinds of particles; even in QFT, mass isn't energy).

 

[Aupmanyav]

(this includes most inflation cosmologies). .. Time didn't exist apart from the big bang.

I thought 'inflation' is well-established and what we do not know are events prior to 'inflation'. Big Bang is prior to inflation and whether time existed at that time or not is not answerable today. Our knowledge starts only after 'inflation'. I have no problem with 'Ex-nihilo' if science finally gravitates to that. Our books (RigVeda) too speculated on what existed when there was no time more than three thousand years ago.

Book 10. Hymn CXXIX. Creation.
1. THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
2 Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
3 Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this. All was indiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
4 Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.
5 Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder.
6 Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
7 He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.

I realize, we do not seem to have not progressed much in the next three thousand years.
Nasadiya Sukta, writer: Prajapati Parameshthin (my homage to him), Translation by Ralph Griffith
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv10129.htm

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I thought 'inflation' is well-established and what we do not know are events prior to 'inflation'. Big Bang is prior to inflation and whether time existed at that time or not is not answerable today.

1) Inflation models assume the big bang was prior to inflation, because they assume inflation. There is absolutely no evidence for it. It is almost entirely a mathematical nicety.

.

Our books (Vedas) too speculated on what existed when there was no time more than three thousand years ago.

Vedic Sanskrit isn't my best language, but it isn't my worst either. Tense and therefore time are even more intrinsic than in English. The Vedas assume. But I am more interested in the answer to my second question. Or, if that is unanswerable, what reasons we have to suppose everything is energy.

 

[ak.yonathan]

Could you expand on this? What is the nature of this "energy" that "everything that is not empty space" is, and what are our reasons (or is our reason) for believing this is so? Thanks!

Well, there are only two known types of things in reality, massive objects and empty space. As others have touched on, mass is equivalent to energy in line with the equation E=mc^2. That equation really does mean that mass is equal to energy, why wouldn't it?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Well, there are only two known types of things in reality, massive objects and empty space.

Ok. The problem for me is that neither of these things exist (or at least neither exist a fundamental/elementary objects whence reality can be said to consist of) in modern physics. "Empty space" is FILLED with physical processes. It CANNOT be "empty" in out intuitive sense of the term. Massive objects even in classical physics were made up of more primitive ones. None of this, however, relates to what classical physics, modern physics, or the worldview of those who believe "everything is energy" describes/believes "energy" to be. And that is my concern here.

As others have touched on, mass is equivalent to energy in line with the equation E=mc^2.

Mass isn't "equivalent" to energy, as the equation you note shows. Were matter equal to energy, then the equation would be MASS=ENERGY. That this isn't the case even in the simplest form of the relation between mass and energy in the simplest relativistic theory means that this equating of mass and energy isn't true (at least in physics; how it is supposed to be true in other worldviews is what this thread is supposed to establish).

 

[Mycroft]

It means that some dippy quote you read on the Internet has been falsely attributed to Einstein. Again.

Einstein did not say that Everything is Energy, and nobody in Physics or any other branch of science says it, either. It's pure pseudoscience.

It's also easily disprovable. Time, for example, is not energy: it's merely a coordinate. Therefore not everything is energy.

While it's certainly true that any system has an energy associated with it, saying that "in science, everything is energy" is not even wrong ( neither correct nor incorrect, because it fails to meet the criteria by which correctness and incorrectness are determined). In the physical sciences, energy is a computable quantity, a number that can be associated with any system. Energy is not a substance any more than "mass" or "volume" are substances, and therefore nothing can be "made of" energy any more than it can be "made of" volume or "made of" mass. This technical sense of the word "energy" is different from the vernacular usage (which often treats light, sound, heat, and electricity as substances which are types of energy).

Regrettably, various forms of the "everything is energy" meme have been propagated in popular science, where it is sometimes used as a shorthand for the principle of mass-energy equivalence.

 

[ak.yonathan]

Ok. The problem for me is that neither of these things exist (or at least neither exist a fundamental/elementary objects whence reality can be said to consist of) in modern physics. "Empty space" is FILLED with physical processes. It CANNOT be "empty" in out intuitive sense of the term. Massive objects even in classical physics were made up of more primitive ones. None of this, however, relates to what classical physics, modern physics, or the worldview of those who believe "everything is energy" describes/believes "energy" to be. And that is my concern here.


Mass isn't "equivalent" to energy, as the equation you note shows. Were matter equal to energy, then the equation would be MASS=ENERGY. That this isn't the case even in the simplest form of the relation between mass and energy in the simplest relativistic theory means that this equating of mass and energy isn't true (at least in physics; how it is supposed to be true in other worldviews is what this thread is supposed to establish).

Right, in the quantum theory even a vacuum is filled with virtual particles, if empty space does not really exist than everything really is energy. Einstein's equation states the equivalence of mass and energy, the c^2 factor is simply a multiplier to convert from mass to energy, what it means is that even a small amount of mass is a huge amount of energy.

 

[Jumi]

I assume when "all is energy" folks talk about energy they don't mean the energy of physics. What gets confusing is when they think physics is talking about what they are talking about or someone who knows physics thinks they are talking about the same thing.

 

[Nietzsche]

Not without making the notions of both paradoxical and inconsistent with modern (and classical!) physics. As Aupmanyav pointed out, at least indirectly, the conversion of mass and energy isn't one of the form E=M. Mass doesn't equal energy even in the most simplistic form of the most simplistic relativistic theory (which is incompatible with quantum theory until one gets to QFT, in which this equivalence requires the production, more or less ex nihilo, of new kinds of particles; even in QFT, mass isn't energy).

And thus why Nietzsche is not a scientist.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Right, in the quantum theory even a vacuum is filled with virtual particles, if empty space does not really exist than everything really is energy. Einstein's equation states the equivalence of mass and energy, the c^2 factor is simply a multiplier to convert from mass to energy

If mass were energy, than most particles in the standard model wouldn't exist. Quantum mechanics is unrivaled in its description of microcosmic dynamics. But it is not in agreement with relativity. In order to force it to agree (and even here we can only "force" it to agree with special relativity), we require that the number of particles not be fixed, that new particles and energy can come into existence from nothing and disappear. Virtual particles aren't equivalent with energy and come into existences as particles precisely because energy in Einstein's equation(s) aren't/isn't matter.

what it means is that even a small amount of mass is a huge amount of energy.

It means that a small amount of mass can be converted into a huge amount of energy. If it were actually energy according to modern physics, all matter would be nuclear bombs that have already exploded.

 

[ak.yonathan]

If mass were energy, than most particles in the standard model wouldn't exist. Quantum mechanics is unrivaled in its description of microcosmic dynamics. But it is not in agreement with relativity. In order to force it to agree (and even here we can only "force" it to agree with special relativity), we require that the number of particles not be fixed, that new particles and energy can come into existence from nothing and disappear. Virtual particles aren't equivalent with energy and come into existences as particles precisely because energy in Einstein's equation(s) aren't/isn't matter.

It means that a small amount of mass can be converted into a huge amount of energy. If it were actually energy according to modern physics, all matter would be nuclear bombs that have already exploded.

Virtual particles have to come into existence because time and energy are complementary variables according to the uncertainty principle, which means that they are a form of energy. All matter can explode if it comes into contact with its antimatter counterpart.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It means that some dippy quote you read on the Internet has been falsely attributed to Einstein.

This is actually in response to many posts made here more than anything else.

Einstein did not say that Everything is Energy, and nobody in Physics or any other branch of science says it, either. It's pure pseudoscience.

For the record, most of my work is in physics and I can read Einstein in English and German were I interested here in what physics says. I know what physics says. I am trying to understand that which I don't: what those who hold that "everything is energy" believe this statement to mean and why. I do not understand this.

It's also easily disprovable. Time, for example, is not energy: it's merely a coordinate. Therefore not everything is energy.

It is FAR more than a coordinate (also, not all coordinates are equivalent). Time as a coordinate differs in special relativity (in which the entirety of spacetime is Minkwoskian) from the geometry of spacetime in general relativity and both differ from "time" as a coordinate in quantum physics (a coordinate which doesn't exist in quantum mechanics).

Energy is not a substance any more than "mass" or "volume" are substances, and therefore nothing can be "made of" energy any more than it can be "made of" volume or "made of" mass.

How would you characterize the prediction of antiparticles dating in particular from Dirac's relativizing of quantum mechanics?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Virtual particles have to come into existence because time and energy are complementary variables according to the uncertainty principle

Not really. They balance equations. Hence their problematic ontological status in QFT and particle physics more generally (see e.g.,
Cao, T. Y. (2004). Conceptual foundations of quantum field theory. Cambridge University Press.
Kuhlmann, M., Lyre, H., & Wayne, A. (Eds.). (2002). Ontological aspects of quantum field theory. World Scientific.
Teller, P. (1995). An interpretive introduction to quantum field theory. Princeton University Press.)

which means that they are a form of energy. All matter can explode if it comes into contact with its antimatter counterpart.

It doesn't "explode" when encountering it's antiparticles, nor is this a reason to equate matter with energy (actually, it's a reason not to). Antiparticles are required to balance equations in relativistic quantum physics because of energy fluctuations at the microcosm when combined with special relativity. Antiparticles "help" to balance the energy of a system by preventing it from being destroyed by allowing the creation of virtual particles.

 

[Mycroft]

This is actually in response to many posts made here more than anything else.


For the record, most of my work is in physics and I can read Einstein in English and German were I interested here in what physics says. I know what physics says. I am trying to understand that which I don't: what those who hold that "everything is energy" believe this statement to mean and why. I do not understand this.


It is FAR more than a coordinate (also, not all coordinates are equivalent). Time as a coordinate differs in special relativity (in which the entirety of spacetime is Minkwoskian) from the geometry of spacetime in general relativity and both differ from "time" as a coordinate in quantum physics (a coordinate which doesn't exist in quantum mechanics).


How would you characterize the prediction of antiparticles dating in particular from Dirac's relativizing of quantum mechanics?

There's nothing to understand. The statement is pure BS.