Thursday, Sep 10, 2026 The claims desk. Receipts included. POWERED BY LENZ
IsThis

Energy is conserved in closed systems with time-translation symmetry.

The Claim

Energy cannot be created.

The Short Version

The statement accurately expresses the conservation-of-energy principle used throughout ordinary physics: energy changes form rather than being created. It is not strictly universal, because an expanding general-relativistic universe may lack a well-defined globally conserved energy total. That limitation does not establish a conventional process that physically creates energy.

Caveats

  • The statement omits the conditions under which energy conservation is formally defined.
  • Expanding spacetime may lack a meaningful globally conserved energy total.
  • Global nonconservation or undefined energy does not automatically prove physical energy creation.

The Receipts

  1. Laws of Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

    vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com

  2. Conservation of Energy: Missing Features in Its Nature and Justification and Why They Matter | Foundations of Science | Springer Nature Link

    link.springer.com

  3. Energy of Photons in Expanding Spacetime: Comparing FLRW and Conformal Cosmology Metrics

    inspirehep.net

  4. The Equivalence of Mass and Energy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

    plato.stanford.edu

  5. The Equivalence of Mass and Energy

    plato.stanford.edu

  6. Leibniz’s Philosophy of Physics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

    plato.stanford.edu

  7. Redshift and Energy Conservation

    arxiv.org

  8. Correspondence between energy conservation and energy-momentum tensor conservation in cosmology

    doi.org

  9. First Law - Conservation of Energy | Glenn Research Center | NASA

    www1.grc.nasa.gov

  10. True: The expanding Universe doesn't conserve energy

    bigthink.com

+ 41 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

Energy

More Fact Checks