Rate this Entry
 

What Is Energy?

Posted Jul24-11 at 05:14 PM by ZapperZ
Actually, if you're expecting an answer to that question, you'll be sorta disappointed. I won't answer it here.

But after coming across ANOTHER thread asking "What is energy?", I kinda sigh and then wondered if this is the question most often asked on PF. It might be. I did a quick search and found these thread asking for the same thing:

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=507345
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=508051
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=498497
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=153105
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=445072
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=359856
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=316894
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=314845
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=275297
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=247178
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=232810
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=209185
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=180809
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=174712
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=161069
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=141360
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=130490
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=85718
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=97845
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=75227
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=69954
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=61450

Phew! There's a few more, but they were going back to 2003 and older, and at that time, PF didn't have that strict (yet) of a rule. So you do run into a lot of very speculative and crackpottish responses.

Also interestingly enough, a lot of the threads run afoul of the rules (in the later years) and often ended up being locked. So a "What is energy?" thread does not meet a very pleasant ending at times.

Zz.
Posted in Uncategorized
Views 105641 Comments 2 Email Blog Entry
« Prev     Main     Next »
Total Comments 2

Comments

  1. Old Comment
    Many introductory physics text books have a chapter called 'what is energy/electricity/gravity/etc'
    These are there to encourage an interest in physics. Do you have any comment?
    Have you ever been a physics teacher?
    Posted Jan27-12 at 03:22 PM by technician technician is offline
  2. Old Comment
    In student teaching my cooperating teacher gave one of the best answers for what is energy. He took about 6 different definitions form different source, and used this to show that we really do not have a 100% set definition for what it is. In the end he tells his students Energy is the stuff that makes stuff do stuff.
    Posted Mar22-12 at 01:51 PM by KyPhyTeach KyPhyTeach is offline