Laws of Conservation?

This is very much a popularist view of conservation of energy, and has little to nothing to do with the actual physics/mathematics. Conservation of energy is simply a statement of *local* continuity, and does not necessarily imply a large-scale conservation (large-scale meaning on the scale of the Universe itself) The obvious example of global breaking of energy conservation is a worm-hole time-machine, where a traveller meets himself exiting a wormhole - he travels with himself to the other worm-hole entrance, where he takes leave of his future self and enters the worm-hole that leads him back to the point in the past, where he exits the wormhole and meets his earlier self. Here, energy conservation is very much violated as we start with one traveller, then have two copies (or three, if we count the wormhole tube as well) and then we are back to just one. Nothing is a meaningless concept - if there is time, there is something - time at the very least. So you cannot point to a time where 'nothing' exists. There is no moment when there is nothing and then a moment when there is something. This is nonsense. There are only moments where there is something, for moments themselves are 'something'. It is quite possible that the Universe has an earliest time - but this does not represent a beginning to the Universe - just a beginning to our idea of time. Just as the North Pole is the beginning of the lines of longitude, but it is not a beginning of the Earth.

If my decription of time-travel was confusing, here's a diagram to help:

^
             ^
C .......    ^
             ^
             ^
             ^
             ^            ________________
             ^           |                |
             ^           |  >>>>>>>>>>>>  |
             ^           | ^  ________  v |
             ^           | ^ |        | v |
             ^          /  ^  \       | v |
             ^            ^           | v |
             ^           ^            | v |
             ^          ^             | v |
             ^         ^              | v |
             ^        ^               | v |
             ^       ^                | v |
             ^      ^                 | v |
             ^     ^                  | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
B .......    ^    ^                   | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
              ^  ^                    | v |
               ^^                     | v |
               ^^                     | v |
              ^  ^                    | v |
             ^    ^                   | v |
             ^     ^                  | v |
             ^      ^                 | v |
             ^       ^                | v |
             ^        ^               | v |
             ^         ^              | v |
             ^          ^             | v |
             ^           ^            | v |
             ^            ^           | v |
             ^          \  ^  /       | v |
             ^           | ^ |________| v |
             ^           | ^            v |
             ^           |  <<<<<<<<<<<<  |
             ^           |________________|
             ^
             ^
A .......    ^
             ^
             ^                  ^ Time
             ^                  |
             ^                  |
             ^                  |
             ^                  |
             ^                  -----> Space
             ^
             ^

If we look at the Universe at time A, our traveller contributes once to the total energy. But at time B, he contributes twice, or three times, if we add in his contribution from the wormhole. Then, at C, we are back to a single contribution. So much for conservation of energy Note, however, that other 'fundemental' conservation laws can be said to hold as long as we account for the time-reversal of the wormhole. So, for example, Baryon number for our traveller is B + B + (-B) = B.

I've not read it but I know of Gerrold himself, and I know it's based on "inconsistent" time-travel. I'm happy reading about it as fiction, but I'm always desperate for good fiction with "consistent" time-travel (as depicted in my diagram and description above) - The Lost script writers are making a good go of it at the moment, though they do slip every now and again, both intentionally and unintentionally. The "circular" compass that Richard passed to Locke and passed back again is a common problematic issue - but I had an epiphany last night regarding the numbers, which I thought both wonderful and very fitting with my own views of reality. Let's see if the writers are on the same wavelength Perhaps a time-travel thread is needed?

As Straggler has implied, this simply implies that your system is not isolated in some way - hole in your box, wormhole out of your box, leaks into the larger (higher dimensional) bulk space, magic...

Hmmm, not really Whatever you read about virtual particles has a good chance of simply being wrong - scientists will often make up any old crap if it helps "explain" a hard concept - believe me

Oh, believe me, I ALWAYS want to bother - in just about every thread here at EvC - it's just time is so limited when you run your own company. It's nearly 1am so I'll get back to this after some much needed sleep

I'm sorry, I don't know what that means. Any conventional explosion simply widely distributes the energy content of a volume. For all the talk of a nuclear explosion causing a loss in mass, if you summed up all the constituent elements of the explosion, never mind how far flung, no mass nor energy would be lost.

No, it does not. The balloon analogy certainly leads you (and many thousands before you) to think that there is an "outside", and maybe an "inside", but that is a problem with the analogy. Surprisingly, the Universe isn't actually a balloon... That all depends on what you are calling the "Universe"...

So does the polar coordinate system of latitude and longitude - does that mean that North and South have meaning off the planet? Do lines of longitude meet at the North Pole and rather than simply terminating, they then slink off into the polar skies? I'm sorry but I just cannot get my head around what you are suggesting - some concept of time without a "universe"? I think you may have the cart before the horse.Oh, and the singularities are the results of the fields equations and some (not-as-reasonable as we once thought) energy conditions - they have nothing to do with the space-time concept itself, which came to prominence with SR and Minkowski.

Yes, both of these are highly plausible and are contained in multiple hypotheses and higher "theories". Though you need to highly caveat your use of words such as "begun"...

Seems like someone who should stick to writing on subjects about which they actually know something... Of course it can, and it happens all the time. E.g., electrons and positrons (matter) annihilate to give two photons (not matter.) No, they are not the same at all. Even saying that *mass* and energy are the same is too much of a stretch, unless you explicitly mention your context. No, it is not obvious. Which is why we spend quite a bit of time on research, trying to find out the answer. Yeah, and given his level of mis-understanding, he'd be one to know

Thanks for the link to his book. His comments about mass and energy are ok to a point, but then he decides that he is suffciently equipped to make his idiotic pronouncement than cons. of mass/energy implies that there had to a be pre-big-bang and essentially an eternetal universe. This is crap. Does he not think that we may have mentioned this in the context of big-bang comsology at some point in the last forty years if it was so obvious??? Or perhaps we missed it, and he's just managed to stumble upon it using his enormous intellect?No, he's simply wrong... Conservation of mass/energy is a *local* conservation law, and does not necessarily apply globally. When talking about the whole Universe in the vicinity of the big bang, we are necessarily talking globally.Example: on the surface of a very large doughnut, locally, you can always shrink a circle into a point. Globally, your circle might encircle the doughnut hole, or it might encircle the dough-ring, and in neither place can your circle be shrunk to a point.

I'm certain it is not. It is just typical layman exuberance. It wouldn't matter if he were correct - an eternally existing Universe can be divinely created just as easily as a Universe with a finite past.