> ...precise laws that conserve both matter and energy; therefore, nothing gets created and nothing gets destroyed...
Not your main point but just wanted to point out that because of inflation, energy actually isn't conserved! It's kind of surprising, but consider light getting redshifted from a far away galaxy. Its frequency drops as it travels through space and thus, so does its energy. This happens with the beam not interacting with anything, so the lost energy doesn't really go anywhere.
Thanks! That is truly fascinating. I have never encountered that idea of it being a consequence of the red-shift before but it does make sense. I wonder where that energy goes. Perhaps there is an ether after all? Seeing as Planck implies that nothing is continuous in this universe, then I wonder what the quanta of the redshift is? Perhaps time itself causes the friction. (I apologize for my layman's spitballing here but this universe is nothing if not fascinating.)
And by inflation, I was referring to the brief period shortly after the BB where the clumps of galaxies quickly separated themselves. Is that what you are referring to here, or are you referring to the general expansion of the universe?
Not your main point but just wanted to point out that because of inflation, energy actually isn't conserved! It's kind of surprising, but consider light getting redshifted from a far away galaxy. Its frequency drops as it travels through space and thus, so does its energy. This happens with the beam not interacting with anything, so the lost energy doesn't really go anywhere.