One of the most fundamental principles of science, taught to schoolchildren from an early age, is the law of conservation of matter and energy. The idea that the total amount of "stuff" in the universe is constant—that it can neither be created nor destroyed—forms the bedrock of physics. It is rooted in the quest of philosophers in ancient Greece to find an eternal, unchanging reality. But is this foundational law a fact, or an assumption? When we look closer, a fascinating and more complex picture emerges.
In this talk, I explore the shaky foundations of this supposed law. The biggest challenges to it have come from modern cosmology. To make their equations work, physicists have had to postulate the existence of “dark matter” and “dark energy”, which together are now thought to make up 95% of all reality. Dark matter is titrated into the equations as needed, and the amount of dark energy seems to be increasing as the universe expands, turning the cosmos into a kind of perpetual motion machine—violating science's oldest taboo.
The questions don't stop with cosmology. Awkward and often-ignored results from biological experiments on energy balance in humans show discrepancies so large they have simply been dismissed. Do these anomalies point towards other forms of energy, known in traditions like India and China as prana and qi? I also touch upon the controversial subject of "free energy" and the possibility of tapping the vast amounts of energy in the quantum vacuum field.
By examining the evidence—and the lack of it—we can see that one of the most basic principles of science is, in fact, one of the most undecided. There are major open questions with enormous practical implications.
If you would like access to the whole course immediately, it is available HERE with a 33% discount for my Substack subscribers: £80 instead of the usual price of £119. To obtain this discount, use the coupon code SSSBIGCOURSE
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