<p>We don't really know enough about Dark Energy now let alone back then. We're not even entirely sure why there's so much conventional matter versus antimatter, even though logically there should be the same amount of each.</p>

<p>The 1st Law of Thermodynamics is seemingly true for Generalistic observations, but when we look at Quantum levels, even a perfect vacuum has particles and antiparticles (and therefore energy) being created from nothing, before recombining into nothing. So the 1st Law of Thermodynamics isn't explicitly accurate for that scale</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-10T12:27:17.593Z
If the Ist Law isn't accurate it can't be a law. The problem of the missing antimatter has always puzzled me,& I find the asymmetry between certain types of decay unconvincing. The vacuum energy explanations are also unconvincing;the Casimir effect can be explained without bringing virtual particles into the picture.
Michael Walsby
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-10T12:46:40.960Z
Given that the 1st Law was established back in 1850, a whole 24 years before the electron was discovered, and special relativity (Quantum stuff) was proposed by Einstein in 1905, I think we can give it a bit of slack.
Besides, it's an observation, not a rule of the universe. Just because we humans have that's how it is based on our observations doesn't make it true.
Tanenthor
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-10T13:35:50.623Z
The real issue is that in GR, there is no simple "conservations of energy" on cosmological scales. This is entirely orthogonal to questions of energy conservation in QM.
Peter Erwin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-10T18:21:23.270Z
Tanenthor,the !st Law has been updated &modernised several times since then. For example,it now includes matter as well as energy,because they are two different forms of the same thing,which wasn't known in the mid-19th century.
Michael Walsby
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-10T22:30:05.317Z
@Michael, it's still not a law. It's a reasonable statement based on knowledge at the time, along with a couple of updates. It's still general and doesn't work outside that generalist view.
Rory Alsop
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-10T22:35:54.293Z
That's what I said: it can.t be a law.
Michael Walsby
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-16T05:02:14.630Z
It doesn't matter whether or not it is a "Law", our human descriptions don't tell the universe how it's meant to work, they're merely tools to help us understand it.
Tanenthor
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-10T12:12:14.173Z
2019-06-10T12:12:14.173Z
Tanenthor
<p>Bearing in mind the provisions of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, which decrees that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, all the energy in the Universe must have been there at the time of the Big Bang. Dark energy began to accelerate the expansion about 5 billion years ago, but in what form was it stored before it mysteriously began to manifest itself?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-10T13:34:28.867Z
The simple answer is that in General Relativity, energy is *not* conserved on cosmological scales. See [this physics.stackexchange question](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/2838/is-the-total-energy-of-the-universe-zero)
Peter Erwin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-10T17:28:16.783Z
The question is a bit "unfair" seeing as we don't know what "dark energy" is, or if it is even real vs. a new set of cosmological theories as different from GR as GR is from Newtonian Mechanics.
Carl Witthoft
<dark-energy>
In what form was dark energy stored 6 billion years ago?
Michael Walsby
# In what form was dark energy stored 6 billion years ago?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-06-10)

Bearing in mind the provisions of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, which decrees that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, all the energy in the Universe must have been there at the time of the Big Bang. Dark energy began to accelerate the expansion about 5 billion years ago, but in what form was it stored before it mysteriously began to manifest itself?

**Tags:** dark-energy

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: The simple answer is that in General Relativity, energy is *not* conserved on cosmological scales. See [this physics.stackexchange question](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/2838/is-the-total-energy-of-the-universe-zero)  
> **username_2**: The question is a bit "unfair" seeing as we don't know what "dark energy" is, or if it is even real vs. a new set of cosmological theories as different from GR as GR is from Newtonian Mechanics.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2019-06-10. Score: 0

We don't really know enough about Dark Energy now let alone back then. We're not even entirely sure why there's so much conventional matter versus antimatter, even though logically there should be the same amount of each.

The 1st Law of Thermodynamics is seemingly true for Generalistic observations, but when we look at Quantum levels, even a perfect vacuum has particles and antiparticles (and therefore energy) being created from nothing, before recombining into nothing. So the 1st Law of Thermodynamics isn't explicitly accurate for that scale

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: If the Ist Law isn't accurate it can't be a law. The problem of the missing antimatter has always puzzled me,& I find the asymmetry between certain types of decay unconvincing. The vacuum energy explanations are also unconvincing;the Casimir effect can be explained without bringing virtual particles into the picture.  
> **username_3**: Given that the 1st Law was established back in 1850, a whole 24 years before the electron was discovered, and special relativity (Quantum stuff) was proposed by Einstein in 1905, I think we can give it a bit of slack. Besides, it's an observation, not a rule of the universe. Just because we humans have that's how it is based on our observations doesn't make it true.  
> **username_1**: The real issue is that in GR, there is no simple "conservations of energy" on cosmological scales. This is entirely orthogonal to questions of energy conservation in QM.  
> **username_0**: username_3,the !st Law has been updated &modernised several times since then. For example,it now includes matter as well as energy,because they are two different forms of the same thing,which wasn't known in the mid-19th century.  
> **username_4**: @username_0, it's still not a law. It's a reasonable statement based on knowledge at the time, along with a couple of updates. It's still general and doesn't work outside that generalist view.  
> **username_0**: That's what I said: it can.t be a law.  
> **username_3**: It doesn't matter whether or not it is a "Law", our human descriptions don't tell the universe how it's meant to work, they're merely tools to help us understand it.  

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