"Energy" is one of those words that we use a lot in everyday life. If we're tired we might say we don't have enough energy to do something. Maybe we grab an energy drink to feel more alert. Or if we go to a sporting event we might talk about the energy in the stadium.
But when we talk about energy in physics, it means something very specific and measureable. There are many different forms of energy such as kinetic, potential, thermal, sound, light, and more. A car driving on a road has energy due to its motion. A car at the top of a hill has more potential energy than a car at the bottom of a hill due to the difference in height. The gasoline in the car has chemical energy due to the chemical bonds between its atoms.
We'll learn about forms of mechanical energy and how to calculate them:
We'll also touch on other types of non-mechanical energy: thermal energy, sound energy, light energy, chemical energy and electrical energy.
But... what actually is energy? At its core, energy is just a numerical value that, when added up, appears to be constant over time (we'll learn more about the law of conservation of energy in the next lesson). There doesn't seem to be some energy "thing" that we can observe the same way we observe physical objects. But we can still understand, calculate, and solve problems involving energy without getting too philosophical about it.
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"Energy" is one of those words that we use a lot in everyday life. If we're tired we might say we don't have enough energy to do something. Maybe we grab an energy drink to feel more alert. Or if we go to a sporting event we might talk about the energy in the stadium.
But when we talk about energy in physics, it means something very specific and measureable. There are many different forms of energy such as kinetic, potential, thermal, sound, light, and more. A car driving on a road has energy due to its motion. A car at the top of a hill has more potential energy than a car at the bottom of a hill due to the difference in height. The gasoline in the car has chemical energy due to the chemical bonds between its atoms.
We'll learn about forms of mechanical energy and how to calculate them:
We'll also touch on other types of non-mechanical energy: thermal energy, sound energy, light energy, chemical energy and electrical energy.
But... what actually is energy? At its core, energy is just a numerical value that, when added up, appears to be constant over time (we'll learn more about the law of conservation of energy in the next lesson). There doesn't seem to be some energy "thing" that we can observe the same way we observe physical objects. But we can still understand, calculate, and solve problems involving energy without getting too philosophical about it.
1. Energy
2. Kinetic Energy
3. Gravitational Potential Energy
4. Spring (Elastic) Potential Energy
Example problems
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