Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This principle, called conservation of energy, is one of our most cherished laws of physics. It governs every part of our lives: the heat it takes to warm up a cup of coffee; the chemical reactions that produce oxygen in the leaves of trees; the orbit of Earth around the sun; the food we need to keep our hearts beating. We cannot live without eating, cars do not run without fuel, and perpetual-motion machines are just a mirage. So when an experiment seems to violate the law of energy conservation, we are rightfully suspicious. What happens when our observations seem to contradict one of science’s most deeply held notions: that energy is always conserved?

Skip for a moment outside our Earthly sphere and consider the wider universe. Almost all of our information about outer space comes in the form of light, and one of light’s key features is that it gets redshifted--its electromagnetic waves get stretched--as it travels from distant galaxies through our ever expanding universe, in accordance with Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. But the longer the wavelength, the lower the energy. Thus, inquisitive minds ask: When light is redshifted by the expansion of the universe, where does its energy go? Is it lost, in violation of the conservation principle?

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Albert Einstein - Energy conservation - General relativity - Metric expansion of space - Physics