Introduction To Energy, What Is It?

Ever wonder what keeps living things or even non-living things going? What I meant by "going" doesn't limit itself to moving, well except for the non-living part. Energy is the word we are looking for. Yes, Energy has many forms that we used almost everytime everyday.

Right now, I can't think of anything that doesn't use energy. I know you can think of something right now. But after you know the different forms of energy. You might probably have this second thoughts about your answer now.



Let's talk about energy. Energy is a common word we hear and use almost everyday. It is also one of the most fundamental part of the universe. That means almost all living and non-living things around us, in or out of this planet, uses energy.



"Energy help us do things. It is the ability to do work."

Energy helps us do things, that's why it is also defined as the ability to do work. You already probably noticed the use or the application of energy in our daily life. Everything we see has it's own energy. Energy is also present outside this planet. One of the most known sign that energy existed in space is the Big Bang theory and the popular equation E = MC2 by the world renowned scientist, Einstein.


ENERGY: History and Beginnings

Now we know what is energy, the exact term that I am talking about. It's time to go to and find out where the idea of energy started and who are the people that contributed to the discovery of one of the most important fundamental part of science and the universe.


Concept Of Energy

The concept of energy emerged out of the idea of vis viva, which Leibniz defined as the product of the mass of an object and its velocity squared; he believed that total vis viva was conserved. To account for slowing due to friction, Leibniz theorized that heat consisted of the random motion of the constituent parts of matter, a view shared by Isaac Newton, although it would be more than a century until this was generally accepted.


History of Energy

You probably might be thinking when did energy started to came about. When did man and probably plants and animals, and other living and non-living things used this energy? Well, for me, we already are using a form of energy from the very beginning. Yes, from the start of time till now we are still using it. The only difference is that the modern world already comprises more uses of different forms of energy. But to track the very first time where we began to discover and use energy was back when our ancestors discover "Fire". Yes, it is one of the very first discoveries and a useful one to be exact. Now we already are using different kinds of energy sources and technology evolved through time. Nuclear, Geothermal, Hydropower, Solarthermal and many more are some of the examples of energy sources today.


Word Usage

The word 'Energy' was derived from the greek word (ἐνέργεια) 'energeia' which means 'activity' or indicating something 'in work' and (ἐνεργός) energos which means 'active' or 'working'. Energeia is also mention in the works of Aristotle. It is one of the most important Greek technical term to be used in science.

When the word "energy" is used outside the boundaries of physics, where it is used in many ways, it can lead to ambiguity and inconsistency. The vernacular terminology is not consistent with technical terminology. For example, while energy is always conserved (in the sense that the total energy does not change despite energy transformations), energy can be converted into a form. For example, thermal energy cannot be utilized to perform work.

When one talks about "conserving energy by driving less," one talks about conserving fossil fuels and preventing useful energy from being lost as heat. This usage of the word "conserve" differs from that of the law of conservation of energy.




References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=timelines