I’ve always pictured human metabolism as a series of water wheels. You start with the river at the top, and it falls through a series of water wheels, driving work at each station. In the human body, we start with molecules that release energy when their chemical bonds are broken and joined with other molecules, most notably with oxygen (although there are anaerobic processes in the human body as well). This can drive the production of other higher energy molecules like proteins or fats, or it can end up as low energy molecules that we expel as waste. When we stop eating, we shut off the water supply to the whole system. When we die, there are still a lot of high energy molecules left over that can react with the environment or be eaten up by other organisms.
Plants use the power of the Sun to pump that water back up to the top reservoir where the process can start over.
In the end, it’s moving a lot of hydrogens and oxygens around, in a general sense. Driving off an oxygen and attaching a hydrogen to a carbon atom requires an input of energy. Replacing a hydrogen with an oxygen on a carbon atom releases energy. It’s the same kind of thing we do with fossil fuels.
It is an interesting matter; the following indicates that things still happen at low temperatures (I am drawn to a philosophy of science and terminology that may harmonize this with my religious outlook).
"In everyday solids, liquids and gases, heat or thermal energy arises from the motion of atoms and molecules as they zing around and bounce off each other. But at very low temperatures, the odd rules of quantum mechanics reign. Molecules don’t collide in the conventional sense; instead, their quantum mechanical waves stretch and overlap. When they overlap like this, they sometimes form a so-called Bose-Einstein condensate, in which all the atoms act identically like a single “super-atom”
Energy is not ambiguous (not within physics, anyway). But energy is not itself stuff ; it is something that all stuff has.
The fact that Strassler says this doesn’t make it correct. It is complete nonsense. To say that energy is something stuff has would mean that there is something else there without the energy and this is not the case. Take away all the energy and nothing is left.
And can I name physicists who do say that all things are energy? I certainly can: Erwin Schrodinger and Albert Einstein both said this. It is the way the majority of physicists think. The most you can say is that Strassler’s comment proves is that you can find physicists who prefer to think of things differently. This cannot be condemned because looking things in a different way is often how progress is made. But I don’t think this is the consensus in physics. It is like when some people leap from highly specialized claims about conservation of quantum information to suggest that everything is information. But it just doesn’t make any sense for a general understanding of things, where it is only too clear that information is regularly copied and destroyed.
The term Dark Energy confuses the issue, since it isn’t (just) energy after all. It also really isn’t stuff; certain kinds of stuff can be responsible for its presence, though we don’t know the details.
This has no bearing on the issue whatsoever any more than the term “dark matter” does. These are both nothing but fudge factors and question marks – names for answers to puzzles, answers which we don’t have.
Photons should not be called energy’, or pure energy’, or anything similar. All particles are ripples in fields and have energy; photons are not special in this regard. Photons are stuff ; energy is not.
To be sure photons are not special in any regard. But not because it shouldn’t be called energy, but because it is not MORE energy than anything else. It is only one form of energy, like everything else is.
The stuff of the universe is all made from fields (the basic ingredients of the universe) and their particles. At least this is the post-1973 viewpoint.
No. That is like saying everything is a body - a term used in kinematics. Only in this case it is using a term in field theory. Field theory does not require that everything be a field any more than kinematics requires everything to be a body. These two theoretical frameworks only require that there are such things as bodies in the one case and that there are such things as fields in the other case.
Now it is quite true that energy was never defined as the stuff of everything – certainly not. Instead it has been the repeated discovery of physics that everything it has investigated and seeks to explain is, in fact, a quantity of energy in some form that can converted to other forms of this same quantity.
No. Your idea of that “different forms of energy are just different properties of matter” is certainly NOT connected to modern physics. In modern physics everything IS described as a form of energy but everything is NOT described as matter. There are forms of energy which are certainly not properties of matter. And when we have an annihilation of particle and anti-particle, the one thing that always endures is the energy and you cannot say that this energy is a property of matter because the form it takes need not be any kind of matter at all. You can have energy in the curvature of space-time. And physicists speak of energy coming from a decay of the vacuum. Thus it makes no sense to claim that the energy is just a property of matter.
In any case, stating this odd minority view that energy is only a property of matter, does not help in answering people who suggest that energy points to God or to spirit. It is more helpful to point out that energy in physics is a measurable thing.
A google search shows there are those who indulge in such nonsense, but I could not find anything to indicate a belief such as this from mainstream Christians. I cannot comprehend how anyone would think energy takes the place of spirit.
The notion of God energizing and working in a repentant Christian to grow in the attributes of Christ is the correct doctrine. The notion of God’s energy, as distinct from His essence, has been debated for a very long time. I am also interested in the doctrine of the creation by God from nothing, and the necessary sustaining it, as an expression of God’s will, in that He energises and provides the dynamics required for this.
I believe in an infinite God, and as a substance monist would suggest that God is an infinite form of “pre-energy” (i.e. not quite the same thing as measurable space-time physical energy). This is not to say God is pre-energy any more than the Bible is paper and ink. But like energy it would dissolve the distinction between action and thing and thus the action of God creating the universe would supply all the substance of the universe. That would be my version of creation ex-nihilo. And this is not a denial of God’s “simplicity” (i.e. suggesting that there is something which makes God be God). Quite the contrary I would claim that all spiritual forms of pre-energy are what they are by their own nature and choices alone and not by the nature of something of which they are composed (as it is with physical things).
However I do not believe the “sustaining” passage of Hebrews means God cannot create anything real or apart from Himself, requiring Him for continued existence like the dream of a dreamer. Instead, I believe it just means that God remains involved in events, so as to keep them within the limits of His purpose and intension. In the role of shepherd and teacher, God protects His creatures and guides them toward what He desires, not according to such trivialities as color and shape, but to the important things like communications, passion, creativity, and cooperation.
I’ve always appreciated the definition from a cosmological perspective where matter is the stuff whose energy density dilutes with inverse volume. This would include dark matter, neutrinos, quarks, and other leptons. Matter is different from photons whose energy density dilutes with inverse radius to the fourth power. The reason that the energy density of photons decreases faster is because the wavelength also gets stretched with the expansion of the universe. Contrast this to dark energy whose energy density stays nearly (maybe completely?) constant with the expansion.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
69
Eventually all sub-atomic force particle and field frequencies will similarly attenuate as space expands. Conservation is preserved.
“Energy is a quantitative property of a system that depends on the motion and interactions of matter and radiation within that system.” https://learninglab.si.edu/standards//2330
The following remarks may move the conversation to scientists as observers (or it may end the conversation, depending on what is proposed ). Observations and hypothesis by scientists are activities of our reasoning in that we measure, weigh, calculate etc. We are active in thinking and measuring, and these activities are within nature. In this way activities are of matter and energy in time and space, (in motion or in a dynamic state) and considered explicable via the scientific method. It is erroneous to believe that we bring something into existence when providing a theory, a hypothesis, or a formulation. The difficulty faced by us is that of differentiating between ourselves as reasoning beings, and the objects of our inquiry - since both appear to be the world. This actualises into language activity, which leads to a differentiation between the world of phenomenon/dynamics and that of human reality which seeks explications in time and space by the scientific method. It may appear, however, that ‘mega-knowledge’ is sought to enable us to attain to a complete understanding of the phenomena and its objects, and this may provide an intellectual perception, or inference, that objects behave according to some principle or, objects are required to be as they are by a ‘something within them’. This search for an explanation of everything, or a universal, arises from our intellectual questioning and doubting.
LOL
If I say light is a product of stars, it does not mean that light is ONLY a product of stars. Likewise those statements you have mined doesn’t mean that energy is only these things.
AND the first of those doesn’t even say that energy is a property of matter. It says matter and radiation, and only that it depends on the motion and interactions of matter and radiation. But that is still not a complete description of energy any more than my statement “light is a product of stars” is a complete description of light. There is STILL the energy of the vacuum and the energy of the curvature of space-time which hasn’t been included in those explanations.
Quote mining is a typical religious practice but it doesn’t work so well in science.
Why? Theories, hypotheses, and formulations don’t exist? I don’t believe that. I don’t believe they exist apart from the particulars like those in or brain and communication media. But they exist in particulars just as we exist in this particular association of matter. Of course, they seek to describe the things measured and observed and it is well to take some care to distinguish between the description and what they describe - if that is what you mean.
Indeed all the objects we see are subjective perceptions (constructs of the mind’s perceptual process) which psychologists have proven are not independent of what we believe. The reality of those perceptions is somewhat measured when our perceptions help us to navigate in our environments with some success. So I would also caution against exaggerating this gap between perception and reality.
My remarks are meant to think of laws that scientists proclaim, and are by no means exhaustive - indeed I am simply enjoying a discussion. Be that as it may, I would remark that a scientific law is an articulation, or combination, of words and symbols, to provide meaning of the world of objects to us. It is unnecessary to argue that a law is present within objects, or it has been suggesting that the universe and our understanding of it will finally be totally reasonable. I have noticed that you refer to these laws and I suggest that instead, the essential question in natural studies is the intelligibility of nature – how is it that our intellect can access natural phenomena and realities with such success? My response to this question is religious (obviously) in that the attribute conferred to humanity is consistent with the image of God when He created all.
Energy is not a ‘thing’; it’s a useful concept that helps in understanding and quantifying interactions. You can’t put it in a bottle and study ‘energy’ alone; it’s always mediated by material things and so is assigning a general term to cover multiple phyical interactions.
Radiative and thermal ‘energy’ is mediated by photons; sound ‘energy’ is mediated by larger physical molecules (gas, liquid, or solid); etc. etc.
You can’t separate ‘energy’ from the material entities involved. It’s not a first-level property of matter; it’s a second-level conceptual framework that allows us to make measurements and predictions on a field level rather than on a particle level.
Do we have direct evidence that matter ‘curves’ space? I know the standard model includes that in the math, but what physical evidence do we have? Gravity isn’t evidence of physically curved space, it’s a theoretical explanation that assumes space is curved…
‘Vacuum energy’ = self-contradiction. How can you have energy from a vacuum? A vacuum by definition means there are no material substances in the volume of the vacuum, and any energy requires a material media to propogate and therefore is not a vacuum.
Not sure if proves matter curves space, but an example that makes you consider that it does is a thought experiment as follows:
Assume you are inside a windowless spacecraft, floating in zero-G traveling in a straight line through the vastness of space. Unknown to you, you near a planet and are captured in orbit around it. What do you feel inside the capsule?
The answer is nothing, as you continue floating around just as you were, In a sense, you still continue in a straight line as far as you know, as an object in motion remains in motion, but the difference is the space curved around the planet due to its mass, and your straight line is now circular as you circle in orbit.
I agree with you, except I the particle physics context like @mitchellmckain keeps bringing up. In that sense, there really is no difference between matter and energy. It’s rather bizarre how a packet of protons, if given sufficient kinetic energy, upon colliding with other protons spontaneously forms particles like the Higgs Boson.
I think the general consensus is nobody knows what the vacuum energy really is. Virtual particles are probably real, but it is unknown if they gravitate and thus may or may not contribute to the vacuum energy. I’ll have to say more on this topic another time.
). Observations and hypothesis by scientists are activities of our reasoning in that we measure, weigh, calculate etc. We are active in thinking and measuring, and these activities are within nature. In this way activities are of matter and energy in time and space, (in motion or in a dynamic state) and considered explicable via the scientific method. It is erroneous to believe that we bring something into existence when providing a theory, a hypothesis, or a formulation. The difficulty faced by us is that of differentiating between ourselves as reasoning beings, and the objects of our inquiry - since both appear to be the world. This actualises into language activity, which leads to a differentiation between the world of phenomenon/dynamics and that of human reality which seeks explications in time and space by the scientific method. It may appear, however, that ‘mega-knowledge’ is sought to enable us to attain to a complete understanding of the phenomena and its objects, and this may provide an intellectual perception, or inference, that objects behave according to some principle or, objects are required to be as they are by a ‘something within them’. This search for an explanation of everything, or a universal, arises from our intellectual questioning and doubting.