Chalnoth
Senior Contributor
The first law of thermodynamics is not E=mc^2.
The first law of thermodynamics is a statement about the conservation of energy. But it is worth noting that this law is not an absolute: the energy of the universe as a whole is not conserved.
The conservation of energy, as it turns out, is a statement about the time-independence of natural laws. But in the context of General Relativity, time and space are interconnected, and one can no longer simply conserve energy: the conservation of energy becomes promoted to the conservation of the stress-energy tensor.
The first law of thermodynamics is a statement about the conservation of energy. But it is worth noting that this law is not an absolute: the energy of the universe as a whole is not conserved.
The conservation of energy, as it turns out, is a statement about the time-independence of natural laws. But in the context of General Relativity, time and space are interconnected, and one can no longer simply conserve energy: the conservation of energy becomes promoted to the conservation of the stress-energy tensor.
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