Post: What Is Energy?
In this blog post, we will dive deep into energy and how it is used in real life. Energy is a big part of physics that you must know before we get into anything else. Also, this is not the only blog post where you learn about energy. There will be more about this concept in this section of physics.
The Key Details
Energy is the capacity to make things move or act. There is a phenomena, or law in physics called the conservation of energy. Accoring to this law, energy cannot be created or destroyed. However, it can change forms. For example, potential energy can be converted to kinetic energy.
How I Would Explain It in Simple Words
Imagine you have 12 indestructable building blocks. There will always be 12; you can’t destroy these blocks or create more. Now, one day you count them and find out that there are 10 blocks. It is impossible for the blocks to be destroyed, so you know that the missing blocks are somewhere. You look around, and you realized that 2 fell down the shelf. The next day, you count 15 blocks. Then, you find out that yesterday, someone came over and left their building blocks at your house. Now, imagine these building blocks are energy. They can’t be destroyed, and you can’t create more.
What Surprised Me
What surprised me is the law that energy can’t be created or destroyed according to the conservation of energy. I never knew that until I read Six Easy Pieces. It helped me understand what energy really is.
Where I See This in Real Life
A real life example of using energy is when you run around, or when you jump up or down. Your energy is making you do that by force. Albert Einstein defined a form of energy called mass-energy equivalence, also known as rest energy as mass times the speed of light squared ($E = mc^2$). This means that the more mass you have in your body, the more energy you have. This formula shows that mass can be converted to energy. There are many different forms of energy such as heat energy, kinetic energy, chemical energy, electrical energy, etc.
Conclusion
As you can see, this blog post contains the important information you need to know about energy and the conservation of energy. You now know different types of energy and how to define it with real life examples. This blog post just shows you the basics of physics. Like I said, there are more posts of energy in the physics sections of this website. Thank you for reading my blog post!