Energy

[Novice1954]

I am trying to understand the basic concept of what ENERGY actually is. I am getting very frustrated because I cannot actually put it in to words, it just seems to be a random thing that is. However, my husband is insisting that heat is energy, and the basis of all things but in my opinion heat is just one form or result of the use of energy.

 

I have read a definition that energy is the capacity to do work, but even that seems a bit random, where does it come from, how does it happen?

 

Does anyone have a simplistic answer for a not too scientifically minded person.

 

I can see where my huscband is coming from that heat causes things to happen, but surely something has to produce that heat.

 

It almost comes down to, which came first the chicken or the egg. or in this case the heat or energy.

[Klaynos]

It is a capacity to do work. It is a property of "stuff". It's quite a difficult concept to describe in words imo, we can describe lots of different forms of energy but a simple explanation of what they all are other than the capacity to do work is rather difficult.

 

Heat is not energy, but an energy transfer. Temperature is an energy, and is related to the average kinetic energy of each atom in a substance.

[Tom Vose]

I am trying to understand the basic concept of what ENERGY actually is. I am getting very frustrated because I cannot actually put it in to words, it just seems to be a random thing that is. However, my husband is insisting that heat is energy, and the basis of all things but in my opinion heat is just one form or result of the use of energy.

 

I have read a definition that energy is the capacity to do work, but even that seems a bit random, where does it come from, how does it happen?

 

Does anyone have a simplistic answer for a not too scientifically minded person.

 

I can see where my huscband is coming from that heat causes things to happen, but surely something has to produce that heat.

 

It almost comes down to, which came first the chicken or the egg. or in this case the heat or energy.

 

 

It's a very novice answer Klaynos provided. Its the kind of answer you get taught in college without the implications of General Relativity.

 

Energy is indeed the ability to do work, but on the fundamental level, it is a distortion in the spacetime fabric. Energy is spacetime, in fact, all of spacetime has a density of energy which is often referred to as either or/and, the Zero-Point Energy Field and the Cosmological Constant. This energy engulfs the background tempeartures of the universe, so it also has very close connections to the microwave background, with a temperature close to 2.73 K in all directions. There is an error however in some places with a 1000th part, but because the difference is never usually bigger, we tend to say this energy is homogeneous, and practically smooth.

 

On the Planck scale of things, (the smallest fundamental units of spacetime) - such as the smallest space theory can deal with [math]10^{-33}[/math] and the smallest time [math]10^{-44}[/math], we find energy bubbling from the fabric itself. It has often been interpreted that spacetime itself is a physical vacuum, and the energy that bubbles in it, is just different forms of space and time itself; which is based on a current conversation i am having in a different subforum right now.

 

Equivalantly, energy is distortions, is curvature, is acceleration.

[swansont]

It's a very novice answer Klaynos provided. Its the kind of

 

Since the OP specifically states that the topic is to be at a novice level, though, that's where the discussion should remain, rather than invoking a connection between zero-point energy and the cosmological constant that is still not well established and is at a much higher level.

[Tom Vose]

I agree. I retract my position here, and i will not reply any longer.

[Phi for All]

I agree. I retract my position here

Kudos, Tom Vose. That took some courage.

[thedarkshade]

I have read a definition that energy is the capacity to do work, but even that seems a bit random, where does it come from, how does it happen?

We know from thermodynamics that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it only can pass from one form to another. What this actually means is that all the energy that is today in the universe, is exactly the same amount of energy that was in the very very beggining of the universe, so the very origin of energy is Big Bang itself.

 

Now if you want to take it to a more practical matter, as where do we take the energy using which we can perform our daily activities, then the answer would be through food. Food provides us all the energy we need, and that energy is released through a series of physiological processes called metabolism.

[Tom Vose]

Well, no... i wasn't going to respond again here, but this subtly corresponds to my previous thread which was deemed to complicated to the OP. Whilst it is technically true that the big bang is the origin of energy, it goes deeper, where the true origin of energy is revealed as the zero-point energy field, rather than some application of a singular region.

[iNow]

Interesting clarification, but probably too far beyond what Novice1954 was really driving at.

 

 

Novice - Have you read this? It should pretty much cover most of your questions from a high level, and allow you to drill-down deeper if you have new questions as a result of reading it:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy