Energy

Energy is the measure of a physical

system. It defines the quality of the
changes and processes which take place
in the Universe, beginning with
movement and finishing with thinking.
The unity and the connection between
the movement forms of substance, their
lively capacity of mutual transformation,
allowed the measuring of different
forms of substance through a common
aspect: energy.

Energy is one of the most important

physical concepts discovered by man.
The correct comprehension of the
notion is a necessary condition to
analyze energetic systems and energetic
processes.

Types of Energy
The name of energy forms is related to:
1. The way energy is perceived (for
example: mechanical energy, electrical
energy, energy of light)

2. What carries the energy (for example:

thermal energy)
3. The origins of energy (for example:
nuclear energy, hydraulic energy, wind
energy, geothermal energy, and solar
energy).

Some general principles can be

reminded:
1. Energy is mathematical abstraction, a
measure of movement within moving
forms changing phenomena.

2. The energy which is available is not

always under the form expected. In
order to obtain the form you want, you
must proceed to conversion. Usually, not
all the energy available can be changed
into another form of energy.
3. The total amount of energy does not
change in the case of any process of
moving forms this is the energy
conservation law. This law permits to
deduce how a changing system works, if
we know the mathematical expressions

of different forms of energy.

4. As energy can not be created or
destroyed, the sum of energies which
enter a process must be equal with the
sum of energies which result from the
process.

The use of different forms of energy

involves knowing the changes from a
form of energy to another. Thus it was
discovered the fundamental law
concerning the irreversibility in time of

real phenomena, which allows us find

out how much energy is available.
Therefore it was introduced the notion
of entropy, whose growing during
physical processes determines
irreversibility.

Physical energy
As a general measure of different
movement forms of substance, energy
expresses the capacity of a physical
system to perform mechanical work

when it suffers a change from a state to

another. In the middle of the 19th
century it was established by
experiments that qualitative different
forms of the movement change one into
the other, in strictly determined
quantitative reports. Whenever, during
material interaction of corps, a certain
equivalent amount of movement
disappears, under another given form, it
appears an equivalent movement
quantity, under another form.

This fact proved the unity and the

indestructibility of the substance
movement and it allowed the
introduction of the energy notion,
therefore the measuring of different
forms of movement by a common
aspect.

Different movement forms are

associated to different types of energy
(mechanical, electromagnetic, thermal,

chemical, nuclear, etc.) and the

equivalence of different types of energy,
their mutual transformation in
determined reports was expressed by
the law of conservation and change of
energy, which is a particular case of a
more general law, that of substance
conservation.

Energy is an intrinsic quality of

substance, of any physical system,
irrespective if it is made of substance,

field or both.

Forms of energetic transfer

Energy does not have different forms, as
it is usually perceived, as energy is a
fundamental property of substance.
Even from the grammatical point of
view, the word energy can be
uncountable.

Some of the best known forms of

energetic transfer are the following

distinct physical variables:

1. Kinetic energy (energy possessed due
to the movement) and Potential energy
(energy possessed due to the position)
(in Mechanics)
2. Internal energy and external energy
(in Thermodynamics)
3. Energy, in relativity (in the Theory of
relativity)
4. Mechanical work (in Mechanics)
5. Force moment (in Mechanics)

Other types of energy

Germination energy
It is a feature of seeds expressed by the
per cent of seeds germinated normally in
1/3 of the time established to
determine the germination capability.

Energy specific to sense organs

It is an idealist subjective theory,
formulated by the German naturalist J.P.
Muller, on the basis of physiological
idealism. According to it, the activity of
sense organs is not determined by an
objective reality, but by a proper energy,
detached metaphysically from the outer
world.