What is Energy

[AndresKiani]

Could it be defined as a medium through which all matter can interrelate?

 

All matter is essential made up of energy, because molecularly energy is present making the subatomic particles move the way they do, which defines matter as a whole.

 

Electrons, due to energy move around the quantum orbitals of an atom. But do the protons move? Do they vibrate like we imagine most molecules and atoms do, due to energy?

 

Maybe our understanding of what energy is still primitive.

Edited January 11, 2014 by AndresKiani

[Klaynos]

Particles cannot be made up of energy as it is a proper of stuff, not stuff itself as has been described above.

[AndresKiani]

Particles cannot be made up of energy as it is a proper of stuff, not stuff itself as has been described above.

 

Well this goes back to the Big Bang Theory, how did nothing come from something, how was a huge amount of energy build up in a very small atomic space, create all matter, that we see today? If energy was the creation of all matter, wouldn't all matter today be essentially energy? Diversified and manifested through years of cooling and expansion?

 

 

 

....I'm really just asking a question , I'm not smart enough or educated enough in physics to understand some of this high level of thinking, that theoretical physicist have.

Edited January 11, 2014 by AndresKiani

[swansont]

When we say that Energy is the capacity to do work. It makes it sound like energy is a theoretical idea.... Not a natural phenomena...

 

I understand it as the capacity to do work.

 

What is this entity we call energy? What is it really?

 

It's the consequence of physics being invariant under a time transformation. It's an abstraction and it's a natural phenomenon.

[decraig]

"My science teacher vaguely defined [energy] as the ability to do work."

 

I don't think this is a very good definition, and says "energy is the ability to do energy".

 

Formally, work has units of energy. In terms of forces, W = Fd. Work is force applied over a distance.

 

It would be better so say that energy has at least two forms, kinetic and potential, and that one form can be become another.

 

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On energy conservation:

 

1) The energy of a system is not conserved. Energy can enter or escape the system. Rather, we might formulate what is called a 'continuity equation'. The change in energy of a system plus the momentum flux out of the system is constant.

 

To keep it simple, envision a tesseract. The bottom face of the tesseract is the system at some time t_0. The top face is the system at some future time t_1. At t_0 the system has some initial energy. At some future time, t_1, the system will have another amount of energy.

 

Now look at the remaining 6 faces. A 'face' on a tesseract is a cube. These 6 remaining cubes have two sides with units of length. The remaining side is an interval of time. The difference in energy of the top and bottom faces plus the differences in momentum of the remaining opposing faces is zero. This is a continuity equation.

 

2) An observer undergoing a change in velocity will find the energy of a system is not conserved; energy is not conserved under a general Galilean transformation; a change in velocity. This is because the kinetic energy has changed.

Edited January 23, 2014 by decraig