Summations Only

It seems to me that we have a consensus of experts, and so a rational ( but not logically valid, of course) reason to accept the idea that the total energy of our universe is near zero.Against that we have:
Ignorance of the way that the value was calculated.
An inability to understand a paper (admittedly one that few - if any layman - could understand)
And the assertion that Dark Energy must upset the result - without even attempting to consider such basic matters as the magnitude of the difference.Let us note that these arguments come from someone who considers himself knowledgable on logical fallacies and insists that a "good" argument from authority is logically valid!
The first two arguments are clearly not even remotely sensible, while the third could do with at least a basic investigation before being put forward as a serious objection.

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The negative energy equation relates to gravity. So, as you point out, if the positive and negative are equal, then you can say:

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mc 2 = m M u G / R u

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But that is not what the website says. The website says simply that it will eliminate m from BOTH sides, which is changing both in the same way - and compare them. Since m must be greater than zero this is mathematically valid.There is no circular argument here.

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There are several errors in the website argument. I don't think we need to go into all of them. Both Trixie and the website author are providing circular arguments

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That is quite obviously false.

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Trixie uses the word "if." The word "if" is required. She is assuming the two equations are equal. i deny this.

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The website author does not use the word "if" but he makes the same assumption when he writes:

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You are again, obviously incorrect. The website does not make that assumption, and Trixie is simply explaining things.

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Do you see how he is assuming they are equal?

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No, I see that he is NOT assuming any such thing, and he is doing no more than applying simple algebra in a way that is completely valid.

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Since this is only about 8% difference, he is saying the answer is probably zero. The problem is his calculation for positive energy is nothing but the speed of light squared - it is velocity.

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So what does this do to Einstein's equation? The author is saying that Einstein is wrong. E does not equal mc 2. Instead, E = c 2.

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C'mon. Seriously? Do we have to spend any more time on this?

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The author is saying no such thing. All he is doing is cancelling the numerical value of m on each side. What you are saying is complete nonsense.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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But both sides of the equation have to be equal for such an operation to be valid, correct?

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No. If you're testing for equality the only restriction is that m can't be zero. That's basic algebra.(If m were negative it would flip the sign, but that doesn't matter when you only care about whether they are equal and it won't be the case anyway)

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You're right. The author of the website is not assuming equivalency as I first thought. There are still problems with his equations.

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I suggest you think very carefully about how you came to make such an obvious mistake, and how long it took you to notice.

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He is saying velocity of the speed of light squared equals all of the positive energy of the universe

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No, he's not. He is saying that the (positive) energy equivalent of the mass of a particle is about the same as the negative energy of the gravitational field relating to that particle.

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The equation does not account for thermal energy, dark energy or kinetic energy.

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Thermal and kinetic energy are essentially the same thing and even if we ignore relativity they are much, much smaller than the energy equivalent of the mass. That really leaves only Dark Energy, and given the questions about whether it exists or what it is if it does I think it is a little premature to point to it as a problem. (Especially as I think that the considerations offered by Cavediver would still apply, but I'm no expert).

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Actually, that is what I'm saying his equations prove.

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Then you are badly misreading what he is saying.

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He appears to be claiming total net energy is zero. His equations do not account for thermal energy, kinetic energy of galaxies or dark energy.

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And I answered all these points in my previous post.Do you really think that the kinetic energy of a galaxy is significant compared to the energy in the mass of the same galaxy ? If you do then perhaps you would like to support that claim...

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We all know that the law of conservation of energy tells us mass can be converted into energy and energy into mass. Keeping in mind this law, try to imagine this conversion happening and PaulK's assertion being true.

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MY assertion is that is what the website is saying. So the correct way to test MY assertion that is to look at what the website says...And conservation of energy doesn't say anything about mass converted to energy. It just says that the total amount of energy stays the same.

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You have mass X with at rest energy of Y. This mass creates a gravitational field energy of -Y. Now when you convert this mass into positive energy, the gravitational field energy goes to zero. How much positive energy did the mass actually create when converted to energy?

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I don't think that either of us is sufficiently expert to deal with this, but maybe that's where the energy comes from.I am going to repeat the very basic point that it's rather silly to be trying to argue points you don't understand.(And if you can't tell the difference between "the website says this" and "this is true" I have to say that I don't think that you should be arguing about anything - at least not about anything said in English.)Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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So, yes, it is about the physics. The physics, when rightly understood, do not allow the poor arguments poor forward by the atheists.

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So, you're claiming that General Relativtiy is not physics, just a "poor argument poor[sic] argument put forward by atheists".I think that really tells us all that we need to know.

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General relativity has been a very successful theory for a long time, one of the most successful theories we have had. General relativity was not a notion formed out of an atheistic motivation like colliding branes.

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However, from what we have been told here, in General Relativity the energy-mass equivalence is a true equivalence. Energy interacts with gravity in the same way that mass does. This would refute all your ideas about Dark Energy making the positive energy exceed the negative energy of the gravitational field. Yet you dismiss the idea without offering any rebuttal.

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But we now know General Relativity is not as descriptive or predictive as we once thought and needs to be modified.

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Firstly that does NOT in any way justify your refusal to even acknowledge the point, You cannot reasonably assume that any feature of General Relativity will be completely negated. In fact the reverse is true - any viable replacement theory will be very close to GR in many ways, so we should expect this feature to remain largely unchanged.Secondly, in the Big Bang thread you attacked Hawking precisely BECAUSE he was dealing with some of the modifications required. That is exactly where Hawking's elimination of the singularity came from, another point that you refused to acknowledge because it contradicted your own (unsupported) ideas about his motivation. Make your mind up. Is General Relativity absolutely right so that we must accept the existence of a singularity - or does it need changing so that there may not have been a singularity in the first place ?

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You claim to have never heard the criticism that colliding branes was born of purely atheistic motives. Forgive me for being skeptical. Did you happen to read the Stanford website I linked. It quoted a number of physicists talking about the theological motivations for several theories thought to do away with God.

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So far as I can tell from reading it , this is false. THe fact that you have yet to provide any quotes supporting your assertion rather suggests that you could not find any such statements either.But it does say: It seems that you are simply promoting a "naive or ideological view".(Also, it goes on to say something relevant to the earlier Big Bang thread: )