Throughout our life, we refer to the term “energy” as “something” that an entity or body has, and that “something” let it accomplish a certain function. Obviously, this definition of energy is extremely vague,😲 but I think that in general, gives a notion common and unconscious to average people, whom day by day are witnesses of different energy transfer mechanisms that occur around them. 😅
Now, let’s say that a person who has curiosity about the physics around he or she, wants to know a concrete definition of what energy is, where should he or she look out for the answer? 🤔
The dictionary from word reference website offers to the world the following definition for the word energy: “Capacity to do work”. This definition could let satisfied more than one person, because it leads to a “mechanical understanding” about what energy represents, as a manifestation of movement. However, this definition remains insufficient cause it requires an inference about the terms capacity and work, which depending on the context that each person has day by day, inevitably will get them to different conclusions.🤓
Furthermore, Kinetic energy (related to movement) is not the only manifestation of energy observable, because everyone knows that heat is a form of energy. That last phrase, makes hard that the definition given by Word reference make us all satisfied, because opens the door to every form of energy that exist or that we know about: Thermal, Mechanical, kinetics, potential, elastic, electric, magnetic, gravitational, radiant, chemical and nuclear, among others. 😱
In an engineering context, the first law of thermodynamics, based on the experiments perform by Joule on the first half of XIX century, give us clear notion that, in essence, the energy can not be created or destroyed during a process, it can only change it form. ⚡️
My goal starting this conversation is to create curiosity in the community about what each one think that energy is, how would you define it? Also, I invite you to share any definition that give you peace. I will post about every form of energy but I would love that everyone get their own conclusions, and share other sources of information if you can. 📚
Kindly regards,
Efren Oballes
P.D: All images were taken from pixabay.com