I've figured out one of the fundamental laws of the universe...

[eris esoteric]

Keeping in mind the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed...

Destruction generates energy.

Creation consumes energy.

Discuss.

[rmthunter]

Assuming that when you speak of "creation" and "destruction" you are talking about creating or destroying materials objects of some sort, it's really pretty simple: creation and destruction are merely alterations in the state of the energy involved between material and non-material. So rather than saying "Destruction generates energy," it's probably more accurate to say "Destruction releases energy." And "Creation consumes energy" should be stated as "Creation binds energy."

[eris esoteric]

Actually, I think it's even simpler. Creation is the conversion of energy into matter, and destruction is the conversion of matter into energy.

[drmomentum[$]]

At the chemical level, which is where most of our biological experience with energy happens, there is no matter-energy conversion. Energy comes from breaking molecular bonds, but mass is also preserved in those reactions.

Energy is bound when the sun shines on a plant and that plant stores the energy by transforming certain chemicals into other chemicals. When we eat the plant, our bodies break those chemicals apart and release the energy. But the mass is still there. The food you eat+your start weight = your end weight+what you excrete.

If you eat too much food energy, your body uses the extra to transform some chemicals into fat, and stores that just like the plant stores carbohydrates. The fat isn't made of energy, but there is energy stored in the chemical bonds with the potential to be released. Fat is a really efficient chemical energy storage system, though, and that's why it takes so long for your body to break up those fat molecules and get rid of them.

A simpler version of the same idea, but on a larger scale, you're acting like the plant when you lift a heavy rock over your head -- storing potential energy by raising the rock higher in the Earth's gravity field. You've made a sort of physical battery. If you let the rock drop onto a Windows Vista Laptop Computer, you convert the potential energy into kinetic energy and use it to do work: smashing a laptop. But the rock still weighs the same.

If you're talking about the sub-atomic, well then I guess things get really weird. But that level is beyond our practical everyday experience.

-JP