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The expanding universe is gaining energy through increasing dark energy, and losing energy from red shift. Are these two effects comparable in magnitude?

Qmechanic
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Andrew Palfreyman
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  • What do you mean by "universe gaining energy" and "universe losing energy"...? – seVenVo1d May 31 '22 at 19:23
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    See https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/7060/redshifting-of-light-and-the-expansion-of-the-universe possibly a duplicate. – ProfRob May 31 '22 at 21:18

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No. The energy of photons lost to cosmological redshift may be paid for by the photons' increased gravitational potential energy as measured by the frame that measures both the redshift and the pseudoforce. As far as I know, there is some expert disagreement about whether that's true or not.

If dark energy works the way it seems to, it's a property of empty space and isn't paid for by anything; and energy conservation must be regarded as a local phenomenon (for millions of light years worth of local).

g s
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  • Can you give some more information about photons gaining energy from gravitational potential energy as spacetime expands? And why do experts disagree if this is true? @gs – vengaq Nov 02 '22 at 17:36