Energy - Definition and explanation of energy

What is energy

Energy is defined as the intangible entity through which we can generate motion, work and heat, energy along with matter are the two basic ingredients of the universe around us. Energy is the invisible source that holds the atoms and subatomic particles that make up all matter in the universe, is also the source through which we can apply motion to matter, matter is substance and energy is what drives substance.

A basic and fundamental pillar of physics is the principle of conservation of energy, this principle tells us that energy can not be created or destroyed only part of the chemical energy is transformed, for example in our car stored in the fuel used to generate the motion to the wheels as mechanical energy and the other part is dissipated as heat or thermal energy, ie all the chemical energy is transformed only into mechanical energy and thermal energy.

All living things need energy to live, plants and trees absorb the energy of sunlight to activate photosynthesis by which convert solar energy into chemical energy that fuels them, herbivores feed on plants using its stored chemical energy to live and move, finally when we eat a salad or fish what we are really doing is absorbing the energy containing foods and those through which we can move and perform mental and physical activities...

On the other hand we use different energy sources present in nature to feed multiple machines and devices that do work and help us in our daily lives, so use electric power to run many machines such as computers, copiers, motors, lamps. .. We use the chemical energy stored in minerals and gases to generate heat or produce movement to our vehicles and use solar energy and gravitational energy to move our satellites and aircraft through space, we are a big consumer of energy.

Thanks to Einstein's famous equation e = mc2 physical demonstrated the fact that everything around us is energy, atoms, molecules, living things, planets, galaxies and all in the vast universe are ultimately energy. The big bang theory suggests as the origin of the universe was created following a huge burst of energy that generated the fundamental particles that make up all matter in our universe.

This simple and elegant equation showed that matter is energy and energy is matter, while matter is a physical entity that occupies space and has mass energy is an abstract and intangible concept that we know exists but we can not see it, we can assert that matter is the physical representation of energy.

Forms of energy

Energy can show or manifest itself in different ways, any material body can have energy in terms of movement, position, temperature, mass, chemical composition and other properties, it is necessary to know the different ways in which energy manifests in order to extract it and use it for our purposes, the following list you can find the most common ways that energy usually occurs in nature:

• Mechanical is the result of the sum of kinetic and potential energy possessed by any function of the body movement and position.

• Temperature as a result of the internal temperature has any substance, used to heat water, generate heat stroke or other applications.

• Power caused by the motion of electric charges that we use to produce artificial light, generate heat and magnetism.

• Chemical is produced in the chemical reactions in a battery.

• Radiant from electromagnetic waves such as light, microwaves or infrared.

• Nuclear is the energy that is stored in the atoms which is released and is used in nuclear power plants to generate electricity.

Moreover recent discoveries in physics and cosmology have shown the existence of a new and mysterious power that causes our universe to expand at great speed, energy of a repulsive force given the name of dark energy that is equivalent to 72% energy present throughout our universe.

Energy Sources

Energy sources are the resources available in nature by which humans extract the energy in order to use it for any application, can classify energy sources in nature depending on their availability, so we have renewable energy sources and non-renewable.

Renewable sources are those that are always present in our system or have the property to regenerate in a short space of time and therefore we can consider as unlimited resources, energy sources such as sunlight, wind, geothermal, hydro are examples among others.

Non-renewable sources are those which can not regenerate in a relatively short space of time being considered are limited resources like energy from fossil fuels such as natural gas or oil.

Humans use each of these energy sources to generate electricity to feed our electronic devices, light that illuminates us during the night, heat to warm us during the cold days or movement which allows travel from one place to another comfortably us.

Now that you know what energy is, did you know that a supernova could release 1x1044 joules of energy during it explosion? If we could just take the 0.0000000001% of the energy released could supply all the energy resources of the entire planet over the next 10 billion years.

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