19
consistent at multiple temporal and spatial scales and can, therefore, be expected to
act in predictable ways to explain many important effects of human industrial
activities.
2.2 What Is Energy?
Since the nineteenth century, we have described energy, indirectly, as units of work.
In his lecture on the Conservation of Energy, the Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman
states as a matter of fact that: “we have no knowledge of what energy is. We do not
have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount” (Feynman 1963).
Energy is a word that describes the potential of abstract physical forces to transform a system. The language scientists and engineers use to discuss its practical
effects deals largely with an accepted understanding of the relationship between
units of force, energy, and power. The work that is accomplished takes place in
space over time. Wilhelm Ostwald’s Fundamentals of General Energetics begins by
identifying energy as a phenomenon as fundamental as that of time and space:
The concepts that find application in all branches of science involving measurements are
space, time, and energy. The significance of the first two has been accepted without question since the time of Kant. That energy deserves a place beside them follows from the fact
that because of the laws of its transformation and its quantitative conservation it makes
possible a measurable relation between all domains of natural phenomena. Its exclusive
right to rank along space and time is founded on the fact that, besides energy, no other general concept finds application in all domains of science.
Whereas we look upon time as unconditionally flowing and space as unconditionally at
rest, we find energy appearing in both states. In the last analysis everything that happens is
nothing but changes in energy…Experience shows that the decrease of energy at one place
is always associated with an equal increase somewhere else. Ostwald (1892 trans.
Lindsay 1976b)
Essentially, if Cartesian space is 3D, and the whole of the indefinite progression of
existence and events from past to present and into the future is 4D, then energy can
be considered as is an AD or “all dimensional” phenomenon.
2.2.1 More Precise Energy Terms: Exergy, Anergy,
and Entropy
Understanding what happens when one form of energy is converted into another or
when it is temporarily stored away as matter requires a broader vocabulary beyond
the word energy.
Exergy – The amount of available energy to do work. High exergy systems
include the fusion reactions in our sun and fossil fuels that captured, concentrated,
and stored electromagnetic radiation that flowed from it millions to hundreds of
2.2 What Is Energy?
consistent at multiple temporal and spatial scales and can, therefore, be expected to
act in predictable ways to explain many important effects of human industrial
activities.
2.2 What Is Energy?
Since the nineteenth century, we have described energy, indirectly, as units of work.
In his lecture on the Conservation of Energy, the Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman
states as a matter of fact that: “we have no knowledge of what energy is. We do not
have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount” (Feynman 1963).
Energy is a word that describes the potential of abstract physical forces to transform a system. The language scientists and engineers use to discuss its practical
effects deals largely with an accepted understanding of the relationship between
units of force, energy, and power. The work that is accomplished takes place in
space over time. Wilhelm Ostwald’s Fundamentals of General Energetics begins by
identifying energy as a phenomenon as fundamental as that of time and space:
The concepts that find application in all branches of science involving measurements are
space, time, and energy. The significance of the first two has been accepted without question since the time of Kant. That energy deserves a place beside them follows from the fact
that because of the laws of its transformation and its quantitative conservation it makes
possible a measurable relation between all domains of natural phenomena. Its exclusive
right to rank along space and time is founded on the fact that, besides energy, no other general concept finds application in all domains of science.
Whereas we look upon time as unconditionally flowing and space as unconditionally at
rest, we find energy appearing in both states. In the last analysis everything that happens is
nothing but changes in energy…Experience shows that the decrease of energy at one place
is always associated with an equal increase somewhere else. Ostwald (1892 trans.
Lindsay 1976b)
Essentially, if Cartesian space is 3D, and the whole of the indefinite progression of
existence and events from past to present and into the future is 4D, then energy can
be considered as is an AD or “all dimensional” phenomenon.
2.2.1 More Precise Energy Terms: Exergy, Anergy,
and Entropy
Understanding what happens when one form of energy is converted into another or
when it is temporarily stored away as matter requires a broader vocabulary beyond
the word energy.
Exergy – The amount of available energy to do work. High exergy systems
include the fusion reactions in our sun and fossil fuels that captured, concentrated,
and stored electromagnetic radiation that flowed from it millions to hundreds of
2.2 What Is Energy?