Quote Originally Posted by Polymirize
Oh this will be easy for you then... Consider Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Consider how at the quantum level, particles can suddenly decide to "stop" existing and disappear. Violation of conservation of energy.
Your right, it is easy. It's not a violation of energy for a partical to "appear" and "disappear" with in an amount of time. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle:change in time * Change in E>=hbar/2. so depending on the E is the amount of time this "new" partical can exist. And this can only happen as long asmomentum is conserved.There are no particals that are existing that can "disapear" using this equaton.

This is also the same way Black holes can evaporate. Two imaginary particals (antimatter and normal matter or two photons) are created near the Horizon (not sure if its event or absolute horizon) and one gets pulled in while the other flys off. The one that get's pulled in then destroys some of the matter inside the hole thus reducing it's mass.

There is never a violation of conservation of energy or we would be able to create perpetual motion machines.

That I know of, wenever thought the world was flat. When "we" built ships we could see the mast over the horizon before "we" saw the ship.