PM [09] What is Energy

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WHAT IS ENERGY?


What is energy?

Although, energy is a common thing in life, we do not know what it is.

We have gone through some of the articles on energy in the internet. Perhaps the best and most detail treatment is done by the New Mexico Solar Energy Association.

We quote some of what they say about energy.

Emblem of New Mexico Solar Energy

Association ©


Common thinking

“Most of us have an intuitive concept of energy that goes something like this:

Energy is the stuff we need to accomplish physical actions such as walking, lifting a glass, heating some water, or powering a television set.

Although this definition is correct, it is a bit indirect because it really only conveys to us what energy is used for, not what energy is, or even how it behaves (for example, what happens to it after you use it?).”

From New Mexico Solar Energy Association ©


A condition or state

“A curious person might still ask questions like:Is energy a thing? Or is it a property or a condition of a thing? How do we really define it? . . . What are its properties? . . .

With perhaps the exception of energy in the form of light, energy is not a thing per se. Rather, energy refers to a condition or state of a thing.”


Condition or state of a thing?


Energy is Work

“To understand the concept of energy a little more deeply, one needs to first understand the concept of "work" as defined by the branch of science called physics.Suppose you push something, say, your couch, across your living room floor. Then the measure of the "work" you do, as defined by the branch of science called physics, is equal to the force you pushed with, multiplied by the distance over which you did the pushing: Work = Force x Distance.”


Work! No wonder I don’t like it!


Cyclical Definition

“Now we can give our first scientific definition of energy:

The energy of an object, or of a system, is how much work the object or system can do on some other object or system.

In other words, energy measures the capability of an object or system to do work on another system or object.”



Energy is hard to explain mostly because it has many forms and it is difficult to give one single comprehensive definition.

When we talk about energy in conventional physics, we cannot avoid mentioning the various forms of energy.

Broadly speaking, energy may appear as mechanical, electrical, chemical, nuclear, solar or thermal.


MECHANICAL ELECTRICAL

MAGNETIC

CHEMICAL

ELASTIC

HEAT THERMAL

LIGHT RADIATION SOUND NUCLEAR

Forms of Energy we can see


Newton missed energy

Newton single-handedly established classical mechanics as the supreme reigning power of the universe. But he missed on one important and useful element – energy.

May be that he had not yet figured out what the nature of momenta and forces were. So he did not venture further into the subject. It may also because energy is itself multifaceted and confusing. He would not have released his ideas on energy until they were fully matured.


Straight to the point

Thus energy is a large and confusing subject.

To tackle with this subject in an efficient way, we better adopt an alternative approach.

Instead of finding out energy in the conventional way, we may go straight ahead with our concepts.

The reader will sure see that this is a better alternative because instead of questing for the answers, we use the answers to explain the questions.


ENERGY OF MOTIONTo be continued in:

Science

PM [09] What is Energy