kinetic energy in essay

Energy Transfers and Transformations

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transferred and transformed. There are a number of different ways energy can be changed, such as when potential energy becomes kinetic energy or when one object moves another object.

Earth Science, Physics

Water Boiling Pot

There are three types of thermal energy transfer: conduction, radiation, and convection. Convection is a cyclical process that only occurs in fluids.

Photograph by Liu Kuanxi

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, meaning that the total amount of energy in the universe has always been and will always be constant. However, this does not mean that energy is immutable; it can change form and even transfer between objects. A common example of energy transfer that we see in everyday life is the transfer of kinetic energy —the energy associated with motion—from one moving object to a stationary object via work. In physics, work is a measure of energy transfer and refers to the force applied by an object over a distance. When a golf club is swung and hits a stationary golf ball, some of the club’s kinetic energy transfers to the ball as the club does “work” on the ball. In an energy transfer such as this one, energy moves from one object to another, but stays in the same form. A kinetic energy transfer is easy to observe and understand, but other important transfers are not as easy to visualize. Thermal energy has to do with the internal energy of a system due to its temperature. When a substance is heated, its temperature rises because the molecules it is composed of move faster and gain thermal energy through heat transfer. Temperature is used as a measurement of the degree of “hotness” or “coldness” of an object, and the term heat is used to refer to thermal energy being transferred from a hotter system to a cooler one. Thermal energy transfers occur in three ways: through conduction , convection , and radiation . When thermal energy is transferred between neighboring molecules that are in contact with one another, this is called conduction . If a metal spoon is placed in a pot of boiling water, even the end not touching the water gets very hot. This happens because metal is an efficient conductor , meaning that heat travels through the material with ease. The vibrations of molecules at the end of the spoon touching the water spread throughout the spoon, until all the molecules are vibrating faster (i.e., the whole spoon gets hot). Some materials, such as wood and plastic, are not good conductors —heat does not easily travel through these materials—and are instead known as insulators . Convection only occurs in fluids, such as liquids and gases. When water is boiled on a stove, the water molecules at the bottom of the pot are closest to the heat source and gain thermal energy first. They begin to move faster and spread out, creating a lower density of molecules at the bottom of the pot. These molecules then rise to the top of the pot and are replaced at the bottom by cooler, denser water. The process repeats, creating a current of molecules sinking, heating up, rising, cooling down, and sinking again. The third type of heat transfer— radiation —is critical to life on Earth and is important for heating bodies of water. With radiation , a heat source does not have to touch the object being heated; radiation can transfer heat even through the vacuum of space. Nearly all thermal energy on Earth originates from the sun and radiates to the surface of our planet, traveling in the form of electromagnetic waves, such as visible light. Materials on Earth then absorb these waves to be used for energy or reflect them back into space. In an energy transformation , energy changes form. A ball sitting at the top of a hill has gravitational potential energy , which is an object’s potential to do work due to its position in a gravitational field. Generally speaking, the higher on the hill this ball is, the more gravitational potential energy it has. When a force pushes it down the hill, that potential energy transforms into kinetic energy . The ball continues losing potential energy and gaining kinetic energy until it reaches the bottom of the hill. In a frictionless universe, the ball would continue rolling forever upon reaching the bottom, since it would have only kinetic energy . On Earth, however, the ball stops at the bottom of the hill due to the kinetic energy being transformed into heat by the opposing force of friction. Just as with energy transfers , energy is conserved in transformations. In nature, energy transfers and transformations happen constantly, such as in a coastal dune environment. When thermal energy radiates from the sun, it heats both the land and ocean, but water has a specific high heat capacity, so it heats up slower than land. This temperature difference creates a convection current, which then manifests as wind. This wind possesses kinetic energy , which it can transfer to grains of sand on the beach by carrying them a short distance. If the moving sand hits an obstacle, it stops due to the friction created by the contact and its kinetic energy is then transformed into thermal energy , or heat. Once enough sand builds up over time, these collisions can create sand dunes, and possibly even an entire dune field. These newly formed sand dunes provide a unique environment for plants and animals. A plant may grow in these dunes by using light energy radiated from the sun to transform water and carbon dioxide into chemical energy , which is stored in sugar. When an animal eats the plant, it uses the energy stored in that sugar to heat its body and move around, transforming the chemical energy into kinetic and thermal energy . Though it may not always be obvious, energy transfers and transformations constantly happen all around us and are what enable life as we know it to exist.

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The technical term for the energy associated with motion is kinetic energy, from the Greek word for motion (the root is the same as the root of the word “cinema” for a motion picture, and in French the term for kinetic energy is “énergie cinétique”). To find how much kinetic energy is possessed by a given moving object, we must convert all its kinetic energy into heat energy, which we have chosen as the standard reference type of energy. We could do this, for example, by firing projectiles into a tank of water and measuring the increase in temperature of the water as a function of the projectile’s mass and velocity. Consider the following data from a series of three such experiments:

m (kg) v (m/s) energy (J) 1.00 1.00 0.50 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00

Comparing the first experiment with the second, we see that doubling the object’s velocity does not just double its energy, it quadruples it. If we compare the first and third lines, however, we find that doubling the mass only doubles the energy. This suggests that kinetic energy is proportional to mass and to the square of velocity, KE∝mv2KE∝mv2, and further experiments of this type would indeed establish such a general rule. The proportionality factor equals 0.5 because of the design of the metric system, so the kinetic energy of a moving object is given by

The metric system is based on the meter, kilogram, and second, with other units being derived from those. Comparing the units on the left and right sides of the equation shows that the joule can be reexpressed in terms of the basic units as kg⋅m2/s2kg⋅m2/s2.

Students are often mystified by the occurrence of the factor of 1/2, but it is less obscure than it looks. The metric system was designed so that some of the equations relating to energy would come out looking simple, at the expense of some others, which had to have inconvenient conversion factors in front. If we were using the old British Engineering System of units, then we would have the British Thermal Unit (BTU) as our unit of energy. In that system, the equation you would learn for kinetic energy would have an inconvenient proportionality constant, KE=(1.29×10−3)mv2KE=(1.29×10−3)mv2, with KEKE measured in units of BTUs, vv measured in feet per second, and so on. At the expense of this inconvenient equation for kinetic energy, the designers of the British Engineering System got a simple rule for calculating the energy required to heat water: one BTU per degree Fahrenheit per pound. The inventor of kinetic energy, Thomas Young, actually defined it as KE=mv2KE=mv2, which meant that all his other equations had to be different from ours by a factor of two. All these systems of units work just fine as long as they are not combined with one another in an inconsistent way.

Example: Energy released by a comet impact

– Comet Shoemaker-Levy, which struck the planet Jupiter in 1994, had a mass of roughly 4×10134×1013 kg, and was moving at a speed of 60 km/s. Compare the kinetic energy released in the impact to the total energy in the world’s nuclear arsenals, which is 2×10192×1019 J. Assume for the sake of simplicity that Jupiter was at rest.

– Since we assume Jupiter was at rest, we can imagine that the comet stopped completely on impact, and 100% of its kinetic energy was converted to heat and sound. We first convert the speed to mks units, v=6×104v=6×104 m/s, and then plug in to the equation to find that the comet’s kinetic energy was roughly 7×10227×1022 J, or about 3000 times the energy in the world’s nuclear arsenals.

Is there any way to derive the equation KE=(1/2)mv2KE=(1/2)mv2 mathematically from first principles? No, it is purely empirical. The factor of 1/2 in front is definitely not derivable, since it is different in different systems of units. The proportionality to v2v2 is not even quite correct; experiments have shown deviations from the v2v2 rule at high speeds, an effect that is related to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Only the proportionality to mm is inevitable. The whole energy concept is based on the idea that we add up energy contributions from all the objects within a system. Based on this philosophy, it is logically necessary that a 2-kg object moving at 1 m/s have the same kinetic energy as two 1-kg objects moving side-by-side at the same speed.

Energy and relative motion

Although I mentioned Einstein’s theory of relativity above, it is more relevant right now to consider how the conservation of energy relates to the simpler Galilean idea that motion is relative. Galileo’s Aristotelian enemies (and it is no exaggeration to call them enemies!) would probably have objected to conservation of energy. After all, the Galilean idea that an object in motion will continue in motion indefinitely in the absence of a force is not so different from the idea that an object’s kinetic energy stays the same unless there is a mechanism like frictional heating for converting that energy into some other form.

More subtly, however, it is not immediately obvious that what we have learned so far about energy is strictly mathematically consistent with the principle that motion is relative. Suppose we verify that a certain process, say the collision of two pool balls, conserves energy as measured in a certain frame of reference: the sum of the balls’ kinetic energies before the collision is equal to their sum after the collision (in reality, we would need to add in other forms of energy, like heat and sound, that are liberated by the collision, but let us keep it simple). But what if we were to measure everything in a frame of reference that was in a different state of motion? A particular pool ball might have less kinetic energy in this new frame; for example, if the new frame of reference was moving right along with it, its kinetic energy in that frame would be zero. On the other hand, some other balls might have a greater kinetic energy in the new frame. It is not immediately obvious that the total energy before the collision will still equal the total energy after the collision. After all, the equation for kinetic energy is fairly complicated, since it involves the square of the velocity, so it would be surprising if everything still worked out in the new frame of reference. It does still work out.

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What Is Energy? Energy Definition and Examples (Science)

The concept of energy is key to science and engineering. Here is the definition, examples of energy, and a look at the way it is classified.

Energy Definition

In science, energy is the ability to do work or heat objects. It is a scalar physical quantity, which means it has magnitude, but no direction. Energy is conserved, which means it can change from one form to another, but isn’t created or destroyed. There are many different types of energy, such as  kinetic energy, potential energy , light, sound, and nuclear energy.

Word Origin and Units

The term “energy” comes from the Greek word  energeia  or from the French words  en meaning in and  ergon  which means work. The SI unit of energy is the joule (J), where 1 J = 1‎kg⋅m 2 ⋅s −2 . Other units include the kilowatt-hour (kW-h), British thermal unit (BTU), calorie (c), kilocalorie (C), electron-volt (EV), erg, and foot-pound (ft-lb).

What Losing Energy Means

One form of energy may be converted into another without violating a law of thermodynamics . Not all of these forms of energy are equally useful for practical applications. When energy is “lost”, it means the energy can’t be recaptured for use. This usually occurs when heat is produced. Losing energy doesn’t mean there is less of it, only that it has changed forms.

Energy may be either renewable or nonrenewable. Photosynthesis is an example of a process the produces renewable energy. Burning coal is an example of nonrenewable energy. The plant continues to produce chemical energy in the form of sugar, by converting solar energy. Once coal is burned, the ash can’t be used to continue the reaction.

Kinetic Energy and Potential Energy

The various forms of energy are classified as kinetic energy, potential energy, or a mixture of them. Kinetic energy is energy of motion, while potential energy is stored energy or energy of position. The total of the sum of the kinetic and potential energy of a system is constant, but energy changes from one form to another.

For example, when you hold an apple motionless above the ground, it has potential energy, but no kinetic energy. When you drop the apple, it has both kinetic and potential energy as it falls. Just before it strikes the ground, it has maximum kinetic energy, but no potential energy.

Renewable and Non-Renewable Energy

Another broad way of classifying energy is as renewable or non-renewable . Renewable energy is energy that replenishes within a human lifetime. Examples include solar energy, wind energy, and biomass. Non-renewable energy either does not regenerate or else takes longer than a human lifespan to do so. Fossil fuels are an example of non-renewable energy.

Forms of Energy

There are many different forms energy can take . Here are some examples:

• nuclear energy  – energy released by changes in the atomic nucleus, such as fission or fusion
• electrical energy  – energy based on the attraction, repulsion, and movement of electrical charge, such as electrons, protons , or ions
• chemical energy   – energy based on the difference between the amount required to form chemical bonds versus how much is needed to break them
• mechanical energy – the sum of the translational and rotational kinetic and potential energies of a system
• gravitational energy – energy stored in gravitational fields
• ionization energy – energy that binds an electron to its atom or molecule
• magnetic energy – energy stored within magnetic fields
• elastic energy – energy of a material that causes it to return to its original shape if it’s deformed
• radiant energy – electromagnetic radiation, such as light from the sun or heat from a stove
• thermal energy – kinetic energy due to the motion of subatomic particles, atoms, and molecules

Examples of Energy

Here are some everyday examples of energy and a look at the types of energy:

• Throwing a ball : Throwing a ball is an example of kinetic energy, potential energy, and mechanical energy
• Fire : Fire is thermal energy, chemical energy, and radiant energy. Its source may be either renewable (wood) or non-renewable (coal).
• Charging a phone battery : Charging a phone involves electrical energy, chemical energy (for the battery), and both kinetic and potential energy. The stored electrical charge is potential energy, while moving charge is kinetic energy.
• Harper, Douglas. “Energy”.  Online Etymology Dictionary .
• Smith, Crosbie (1998).  The Science of Energy – a Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain . The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-76420-7.

Related Posts

Introduction to Temperature, Kinetic Theory, and the Gas Laws

Chapter outline.

• Define temperature.
• Convert temperatures between the Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin scales.
• Define thermal equilibrium.
• State the zeroth law of thermodynamics.
• Define and describe thermal expansion.
• Calculate the linear expansion of an object given its initial length, change in temperature, and coefficient of linear expansion.
• Calculate the volume expansion of an object given its initial volume, change in temperature, and coefficient of volume expansion.
• Calculate thermal stress on an object given its original volume, temperature change, volume change, and bulk modulus.
• State the ideal gas law in terms of molecules and in terms of moles.
• Use the ideal gas law to calculate pressure change, temperature change, volume change, or the number of molecules or moles in a given volume.
• Use Avogadro’s number to convert between number of molecules and number of moles.
• Express the ideal gas law in terms of molecular mass and velocity.
• Define thermal energy.
• Calculate the kinetic energy of a gas molecule, given its temperature.
• Describe the relationship between the temperature of a gas and the kinetic energy of atoms and molecules.
• Describe the distribution of speeds of molecules in a gas.
• Interpret a phase diagram.
• State Dalton’s law.
• Identify and describe the triple point of a gas from its phase diagram.
• Describe the state of equilibrium between a liquid and a gas, a liquid and a solid, and a gas and a solid.
• Explain the relationship between vapor pressure of water and the capacity of air to hold water vapor.
• Explain the relationship between relative humidity and partial pressure of water vapor in the air.
• Calculate vapor density using vapor pressure.
• Calculate humidity and dew point.

Heat is something familiar to each of us. We feel the warmth of the summer Sun, the chill of a clear summer night, the heat of coffee after a winter stroll, and the cooling effect of our sweat. Heat transfer is maintained by temperature differences. Manifestations of heat transfer —the movement of heat energy from one place or material to another—are apparent throughout the universe. Heat from beneath Earth’s surface is brought to the surface in flows of incandescent lava. The Sun warms Earth’s surface and is the source of much of the energy we find on it. Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide threaten to trap more of the Sun’s energy, perhaps fundamentally altering the ecosphere. In space, supernovas explode, briefly radiating more heat than an entire galaxy does.

What is heat? How do we define it? How is it related to temperature? What are heat’s effects? How is it related to other forms of energy and to work? We will find that, in spite of the richness of the phenomena, there is a small set of underlying physical principles that unite the subjects and tie them to other fields.

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4: Kinetic Energy

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• 4.1: Kinetic Energy
• 4.2: "Convertible" and "Translational" Kinetic Energy
• 4.3: In Summary
• 4.4: Examples
• 4.5: Exercises

It’s a wonderful world — and universe — out there.

Come explore with us!  

Science News Explores

Scientists say: kinetic energy.

When an object is in motion, its energy has a special name

When a roller coaster races down the slope, it has a lot of kinetic energy.

acroamatic/Flickr/ (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

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By Bethany Brookshire

March 7, 2016 at 7:00 am

Kinetic energy (noun, “Ki-NEH-tik EN-ur-gee”)

The energy an object has due to being in motion. The amount will depend on the mass of the object and how fast it is moving. Kinetic energy is also the work that’s needed to move an object with mass from rest to a particular speed. A roller coaster racing down a steep slope has kinetic energy. It has the energy needed to bring the cars from stationary to speedy. Because roller coaster cars are large, when they move very fast a lot of kinetic energy is involved. 

In a sentence

In hybrid cars, computers control the wheels and convert the kinetic energy of the turning tires into electricity.

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Power Words

(for more about power words, click here ).

kinetic energy   The energy an object possesses due to its being in motion. The amount of this energy will depend on both the mass (usually weight) of the object and its speed.

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Stemonstrations: kinetic and potential energy.

Grade Levels

Grades 5-8, Grades 9-12

Physical Science, Technology, Energy, Space Station

Lesson Plans / Activities, Videos

Watch NASA astronaut Joe Acaba demonstrate kinetic and potential energy on the International Space Station by showing how an object’s potential energy changes due to its position. How can potential energy be converted into kinetic energy?

Classroom Connection: Kinetic and Potential Energy

Grade Level: 6-12

Time Required: 50 minutes

Next Generation Science Standards:

HS-PS3-1. Construct and interpret graphical displays of data to describe the relationships of kinetic energy to the mass of an object and to the speed of an object.

MS-PS3-1. Create a computational model to calculate the change in the energy of one component in a system when the change in energy of the other component(s) and energy flows in and out of the system are known.

MS-PS3-2. Develop a model to describe that when the arrangement of objects interacting at a distance changes, different amounts of potential energy are stored in the system.

How Potential and Kinetic Energy Work Together to Move the World

There are more variables to the equilibrium between potential and kinetic energy than it first meets the eye ..

John Loeffler

MarcusObal / Wikimedia Commons

If you’ve ever played the guitar, lit a fire, felt the warmth of a summer sun, or jumped out of an airplane, you will be familiar with the relationship between potential and kinetic energy, even if you don’t realize it. 

In simple terms, kinetic energy  is the energy of an object by virtue of its motion in all its forms, and potential energy is the energy inherent in an object by virtue of its relative position to other objects, its electrical charge, its chemical composition, and other factors.

The two types of energy are tightly related to one another in a way that is constantly changing but always in equilibrium. This back and forth between potential energy and kinetic energy is the key to everything from the wind in your hair to the nuclear furnace at the center of the sun and much, much more.

What are the types of kinetic and potential energy?

 There are five primary forms of kinetic energy:

• Radiant energy
• Thermal energy
• Sound energy
• Electrical energy
• Mechanical energy

Radiant energy is a form of kinetic energy transferred by electromagnetic radiation, best represented by radiation or light, in that it is  transmitted without the movement of mass .  Examples of radiant energy include the infrared light that radiates from a hot stove and the warmth from direct sunlight . 

Thermal energy , otherwise known as heat, is a form of kinetic energy produced by the motion of individual atoms colliding with each other. The more excited the atoms are, the faster they move and so the more kinetic energy they possess. When they collide with other atoms, that kinetic energy is experienced as heat.

Sound energy is a form of kinetic energy produced by the vibration of an object that travels through the displacement of material in a medium, such as air or water. Without particles to displace though, sound cannot travel, which is why there is no sound in a vacuum such as outer space. In addition, denser material can carry sound farther, like sonar in the ocean versus ringing a bell on the shore.

Electrical energy is also a form of kinetic energy, which is produced by the flow of free electrons in a circuit. This form of kinetic energy is essential to our modern world, since this is what provides the power for so much of our modern technology.

Mechanical energy is the most obvious form of kinetic energy since this is the form we see it in just about everywhere. Whether it’s a prevailing wind turning the blades of a wind turbine, a bus rolling through an intersection, or a rollercoaster rolling down a slope for acceleration only to slow down again as it crests the next hill, this swinging back and forth between potential energy and kinetic energy is the most visually apparent kind of kinetic energy.

There are  four main types of potential energy that can be directly converted into kinetic energy.

Chemical energy is the energy stored in the bonds between atoms that make up molecules. By breaking these bonds or altering the composition of the molecules, you can release some of this stored energy to produce kinetic energy. One of the most common ways to do this is by burning a substance as fuel to convert that energy into thermal energy, such as burning wood in a fireplace to heat a room.

Mechanical energy , while a form of kinetic energy, it is also a form of potential energy. A common form of potential mechanical energy is tension, like the compression of a spring or the twisting of a rope, which can then be released so that it spins in the opposite direction to release the inherent tension. A rubber band is also an example of potential mechanical energy bound up in the elasticity of the rubber.

Nuclear energy is another important form of potential energy. Nuclear energy refers to the tremendous amount of energy that keeps the atomic nucleus together and which can be released if an atomic nucleus is split apart or two atomic nuclei are fused together. Nuclear energy is responsible for producing radiant kinetic energy in the form of light, gamma rays, and other forms of radiation, like that from the sun’s nuclear fusion or the radiation produced by the nuclear fission of an atomic bomb.

Gravitational energy is the potential energy stored in an object as a function of its distance from a center of gravity, most commonly experienced as free-falling from a given height. For example, a cup of water on the edge of a table has potential gravitational energy that is released as mechanical kinetic energy when a cat comes by and pushes it off the table’s edge. Our rollercoaster example above is also a prime example of gravitational potential energy since it’s the running down long, steep drops that give the coaster the kinetic energy to overcome gravity and friction to make it to the top of the next incline.

What does kinetic energy depend on?

Kinetic energy is reliant on potential energy to, well, get moving. Newton’s second law of motion states that an object in motion will stay in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force, and that an object at rest strongly inclines toward staying at rest.

So, trying to roll a large boulder that is settled in the middle of a field takes a lot of external energy input, while when that same boulder gets to a hill and starts rolling down, it becomes easier to accelerate the faster it’s moving. Conversely, that boulder now rolling down a hill uncontrollably will take considerably more energy to slow down or stop, which is obvious if you’ve ever seen a considerable mass roll down a hill and hit something. An object at complete rest meanwhile requires absolutely zero energy to decelerate or stop.

In our example of the boulder, the potential energy required by a person to move the boulder from a state of rest comes from the chemical energy inside your body that you convert through metabolism into the mechanical kinetic energy to push against the rock. From the rock’s perspective, your muscles straining to get it to roll provide mechanical potential energy that then gets converted into a slowly accelerating roll.

So, one object’s kinetic energy might be another object’s potential energy, and this transference and conversion of energy from potential to kinetic is going in both directions at the same, often in several different forms of kinetic and potential energy all at once.

Returning to our example of a person rolling a boulder down a slope, if that slope is the side of an erupting volcano and that rock just got blown out of a magma pocket and is hundreds or thousands of degrees Fahrenheit, even approaching it will hit you with intense thermal energy, which would be all the greater if you manage to get your hands on the rock enough to start pushing.

Oh, and at that point, the skin and soft tissue in your hand become potential chemical energy as the heat of the molten rock burns your hands in a chemical reaction that releases water, carbon dioxide, and various other chemicals created by the charring of the flesh of your hand, transforming it into a form of charcoal. But at least you might have moved the boulder a little way down the side of the volcano.

Different types of potential and kinetic energy: How are they used in daily life?

The different types of kinetic energy are used in just about everything we do.

The largest example of radiant energy is that coming from the sun, which bathes the Earth in a broad spectrum of radiant energy in the form of light, heat, and other kinds of radiation. Besides using this energy to visually navigate our world in the form of sunlight, we can also capture it in photovoltaic panels and turn radiant energy into electrical energy. Of course, plants and other organisms also capture this energy, using it to drive chemical reactions that create fuel for the plant to use for growth.

Radiant energy is most associated with nuclear potential energy, but can also be produced by chemical energy, as with chemical lights and bioluminescence. It can also be a byproduct of thermal energy, like the coil burners of an electric stove.  

Speaking of, thermal energy is what we use to keep ourselves warm and to cook our food. We can also use it to make metals more pliable so that we can bend and shape them to make tools. Pretty much whenever we need something heated up, we’re looking at thermal energy. The most common way to get thermal energy out of potential energy is to burn fuel, but mechanical potential energy can also become thermal energy.

Since thermal energy is the result of the collision of individual atoms, any time one object his another, its atoms are hitting the other objects atoms and thermal energy is generated as a result. Friction is another way to produce thermal energy from mechanical energy. 

We use sound energy to make sense of our surroundings, communicate with one another, and make music. Bats rely on sound energy for echolocation to help them identify insects to eat, and whales use sound energy to stay connected to other members of their pod and find mates across vast distances. Sound energy is a strictly mechanical process, since sound energy is really just vibration.

When vibrating within a medium of some kind, it produces sounds that we can hear, but even in a complete vacuum, the vibration of an object is still releasing sound energy even if there’s no way for us to hear it.

Electrical energy is what is allowing you to read the words on this page, right now, thanks to the electronic display that converts electrical energy into different colored pixels on your screen.

Electrical energy is also what was used to transmit the digitized version of these words across fiber-optic cables, which were either piped directly into the computer you are using to read this as electrical signals or were instead converted into radio waves by a Wi-Fi transmitter which your computer was then able to translate back into electrical energy.

All of these electrons moving through a material, like copper wiring, excite the atoms they come into contact with, which causes them to move a little bit faster. This produces heat energy that either needs to be utilized, as in electric heaters, or radiated away as exhaust. Electric energy can also become chemical energy as bonds are formed with different molecules. This is essentially how we store electric energy in a chemical battery such as lithium-ion battery packs.

Even our bodies take chemical energy in the form of food, water, and oxygen and convert it through metabolism into electrical impulses in our nervous system that allows our brains to process information, relay messages, or perform work.

Finally, mechanical energy is responsible for everything from turning the key you use to lock or unlock your door, to turning a screwdriver to tighten a screw, or the movement of our arms and legs which allow us to walk. It’s also responsible for various mechanical turbines, which are essential to generating the electricity we need to power all the technology we’ve come to rely on for the past century and a half.

Simply put, if something is performing some form of physical work, the interplay between potential energy and kinetic energy is going to be involved, which makes it one of the most ubiquitous and essential forms of energy in the universe — and also the most useful.

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Wind energy.

Scientists and engineers are using energy from the wind to generate electricity. Wind energy, or wind power, is created using a wind turbine.

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As renewable energy technology continues to advance and grow in popularity, wind farms like this one have become an increasingly common sight along hills, fields, or even offshore in the ocean.

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Anything that moves has kinetic energy , and scientists and engineers are using the wind’s kinetic energy to generate electricity. Wind energy , or wind power , is created using a wind turbine , a device that channels the power of the wind to generate electricity.

The wind blows the blades of the turbine , which are attached to a rotor. The rotor then spins a generator to create electricity. There are two types of wind turbines : the horizontal - axis wind turbines (HAWTs) and vertical - axis wind turbines (VAWTs). HAWTs are the most common type of wind turbine . They usually have two or three long, thin blades that look like an airplane propeller. The blades are positioned so that they face directly into the wind. VAWTs have shorter, wider curved blades that resemble the beaters used in an electric mixer.

Small, individual wind turbines can produce 100 kilowatts of power, enough to power a home. Small wind turbines are also used for places like water pumping stations. Slightly larger wind turbines sit on towers that are as tall as 80 meters (260 feet) and have rotor blades that extend approximately 40 meters (130 feet) long. These turbines can generate 1.8 megawatts of power. Even larger wind turbines can be found perched on towers that stand 240 meters (787 feet) tall have rotor blades more than 162 meters (531 feet) long. These large turbines can generate anywhere from 4.8 to 9.5 megawatts of power.

Once the electricity is generated, it can be used, connected to the electrical grid, or stored for future use. The United States Department of Energy is working with the National Laboratories to develop and improve technologies, such as batteries and pumped-storage hydropower so that they can be used to store excess wind energy. Companies like General Electric install batteries along with their wind turbines so that as the electricity is generated from wind energy, it can be stored right away.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are 57,000 wind turbines in the United States, both on land and offshore. Wind turbines can be standalone structures, or they can be clustered together in what is known as a wind farm . While one turbine can generate enough electricity to support the energy needs of a single home, a wind farm can generate far more electricity, enough to power thousands of homes. Wind farms are usually located on top of a mountain or in an otherwise windy place in order to take advantage of natural winds.

The largest offshore wind farm in the world is called the Walney Extension. This wind farm is located in the Irish Sea approximately 19 kilometers (11 miles) west of the northwest coast of England. The Walney Extension covers a massive area of 149 square kilometers (56 square miles), which makes the wind farm bigger than the city of San Francisco, California, or the island of Manhattan in New York. The grid of 87 wind turbines stands 195 meters (640 feet) tall, making these offshore wind turbines some of the largest wind turbines in the world. The Walney Extension has the potential to generate 659 megawatts of power, which is enough to supply 600,000 homes in the United Kingdom with electricity.

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The Relationship Between the Kinetic Energy of Motion and the Force Report

Introduction.

This paper investigates the relationship between kinetic energy and the force applied to a cart moving vertically. The force is realized through the mass of the weight suspended vertically, which makes the cart move. The ultimate goal of the laboratory work is to determine the relationship between the kinetic energy of motion and the force.

In this laboratory work, the primary data were the positions and times for which these positions were measured. Table 1 summarizes the results of the empirical studies. From the data obtained, the corresponding velocity values for each of the tests were obtained using the formula for the ratio of the position difference to the time difference to determine the instantaneous velocity: Table 2 contains information about that. In addition, Table 2 contains information about the weights of the weights that were suspended from the smart cart through the pulley.

Table 1: Primary results of direct measurements about positions and times.

Table 2: Data on instantaneous velocities that have been calculated for each of the tests, as well as the mass of the suspended weights.

The values of velocity and mass are sufficient to determine the kinetic energy experienced by the cart in motion. The equation K=(mv 2 )/2 is used to calculate the kinetic energy. Thus, the corresponding kinetic energy values for each of the tests were calculated, shown in Table 3. The calculation took into account that the mass of the weights was measured in grams, and the SI calculation requires the use of a kilogram as the standard unit of mass. Therefore, the results shown in Table 3 were calculated by converting the mass of the weights to kilograms. Table 3 also shows the values of the corresponding forces of gravity solely affecting the cart through the weights suspended vertically. The values of the gravity forces were calculated from the corollary of Newton’s second law (F = mg), assuming that the acceleration of gravity was assumed to be 9.807 m/s 2 (Science & Math, 2022).

Table 3: Data on the calculated values of kinetic energy (J) and gravity affecting the cart (N).

In order to study the dependence of kinetic energy on gravity controlling the motion of the cart, the corresponding points were plotted on a scatter plot. The corresponding plot with the plotted regression line is shown in Figure 1; it is noteworthy that the coefficient of determination turns out to be unity, indicating excellent reliability of the linear approximation of the data. This seems logical, as follows from the formulae shown in [1]. Since v 2 determines the kinetic energy and g determines the force of gravity, the linearity of this dependence is confirmed. It is observed that kinetic energy increases with increasing gravity, which means that when the mass of weights suspended from the cart increases, gravity will continue to increase naturally. The Y-intercept makes no physical sense because there is no kinetic energy in the absence of motion. At the same time, the tilt determines the position of the cart and is measured in meters since the distance traveled turns out to be the same.

To summarize, it should be said that the kinetic energy linearly depends on the applied force of gravity. As the mass of the suspended weight increased, and hence the gravity force increased, a linear increase in the values of kinetic energy was observed. Linearity was confirmed with the help of formulas, which means that the obtained results correspond perfectly to theoretical expectations.

Science & Math. (2022). How do you find F = mg? Reviews.

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IvyPanda. (2023, June 25). The Relationship Between the Kinetic Energy of Motion and the Force. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-relationship-between-the-kinetic-energy-of-motion-and-the-force/

"The Relationship Between the Kinetic Energy of Motion and the Force." IvyPanda , 25 June 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/the-relationship-between-the-kinetic-energy-of-motion-and-the-force/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'The Relationship Between the Kinetic Energy of Motion and the Force'. 25 June.

IvyPanda . 2023. "The Relationship Between the Kinetic Energy of Motion and the Force." June 25, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-relationship-between-the-kinetic-energy-of-motion-and-the-force/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Relationship Between the Kinetic Energy of Motion and the Force." June 25, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-relationship-between-the-kinetic-energy-of-motion-and-the-force/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Relationship Between the Kinetic Energy of Motion and the Force." June 25, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-relationship-between-the-kinetic-energy-of-motion-and-the-force/.

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Physics > Atomic and Molecular Clusters

Title: method of kinetic energy reconstruction from time-of-flight mass spectra.

Abstract: We present a method for the reconstruction of ion kinetic energy distributions from ion time-of-flight mass spectra through ion trajectory simulations. In particular, this method is applicable to complicated spectrometer geometries with largely anisotropic ion collection efficiencies. A calibration procedure using a single ion mass peak allows the accurate determination of parameters related to the spectrometer calibration, experimental alignment and instrument response function, which improves the agreement between simulations and experiment. The calibrated simulation is used to generate a set of basis functions for the time-of-flight spectra, which are then used to transform from time-of-flight to kinetic-energy spectra. We demonstrate this reconstruction method on a recent pump-probe experiment by Asmussen et al. (J. D. Asmussen et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 23, 15138, (2021)) on helium nanodroplets and retrieve time-resolved kinetic-energy-release spectra for the ions from ion time-of-flight spectra.

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