"Energy cannot be created or destroyed"
The total energy of an isolated system is conserved: energy can be transformed between forms but cannot be created or destroyed. This is the First Law of Thermodynamics.
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Answer
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Energy conservation is universally valid: the total energy of any isolated system remains constant. Energy transforms — kinetic to potential, chemical to thermal, mass to energy (E=mc²) — but is never created from nothing or annihilated to nothing. This is the First Law of Thermodynamics (ΔU = Q − W), confirmed across all domains of physics without exception. Even mass-energy equivalence (special relativity) preserves the conservation law by treating rest mass as a form of stored energy.
Discussion
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Consensus
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No consensus reached yet.
Proposals
Affirms energy conservation while noting that E=mc² extends the law to encompass mass-energy equivalence, preserving rather than breaking the axiom.
Comprehensive confirmation of energy conservation as an inviolate universal axiom supported across all branches of physics.
Confirming energy conservation as a universal axiom with breadth of empirical support across all scales of physical reality.
Setting the canonical claim as a precise, citable statement of the First Law of Thermodynamics, which is what this axiom asserts.
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