Talk:Forms of energy

Missing source[edit]

No source is given for a quote from Richard Feynman on this page.

The quote starts with: "These notions of potential and kinetic energy depend on..."

I have searched in Feynman's works, without being able to find this quote (or anything close to it).

I hope it will be possible to get a reference to the source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.181.85.20 (talk) 00:32, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this should be deleted, it seems like this quote is pulled out of thin air.Lansey (talk) 01:50, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that this should be deleted. It may not be written at the graduate level, but it is very useful to my high school students. I would recommend cleaning it up but keeping it. dmcourtn (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal[edit]

This article is very useful and important, and has initiated well, but could do with some more organization and generalization. (there seems to be specific applications). Also more equations associated with each form frequenctly encountered would be helpful, since different forms of energy may be calculated in different ways, some may not work when others do... Maschen (talk) 18:56, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. This is my proposition.BartYgor (talk) 17:23, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Forms of energy.[edit]

1. All energy is mechanical[edit]

In essence all energy is mechanical. Because it is described in terms of movement (kinetic energy) or position in a force field (potential energy). Three fundamental interactions that constitute a force field have been identified. They are: electroweak (the generalisation of electromagnetic and weak interaction), gravitation, strong interaction.

2. According to description[edit]

Forms of energy can be named according to their way of describing that energy which is often related to the human scale because of historical development of science. There are as many forms of energy as there are ways of describing them.

 Thermal (by temperature)
 Chemically (chemical reactions)
 Mechanically (by motion and position)
       Kinetic (motion)
       Potential (position)
       
       Gravitationally (mechanical energy into gravitational field)
       Elastic
       Sound
       Pressure
       Friction
 Electromagnetic (Maxwell  laws)
       electrical
       magnetic
       radiation
 ...

3. According to its source[edit]

Often types of energy are named according to the source of that energy.

  Solar energy
  Nuclear energy
  ...

I'm not striving for completeness here. But the proposed subdivision seems to me a more logic first start. BartYgor (talk) 17:23, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge with other Energy pages[edit]

This page is almost an orphan. Most of the energy pages and electrical energy pages do not link to it.
A lot of the information is already on other pages (see energy transformation )
The little tables of examples of energy transformations have errors and are at best misleading due to oversimplification (e.g. a synchrotron converts electrical energy to nuclear energy)
The whole ENERGY section in wikipedia is all messed up and needs someone to totally reorganize it.

Lehasa (talk) 17:18, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

agreed that this page is essentially an orphan. the Energy page is much better. I would recommend this page for deletion - and anything worth saving can be merged into that Energy page.

Lansey (talk) 01:53, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thermodynamics[edit]

The thermodynamics of this page are plain wrong. ΔE=Q+W. Whenever energy is transformed it involves "heat" and might involve "work". Work is the effect of a force over a distance. Heat is the ammount of energy that was not used to perform work. Energy is a function of state but work and heat are functios of path: dE=δQ+δW. There _always_ is some energy "lost" as heat when energy is transfered. The optimal (minimal) ammount of "heat" required to change the state of a system between two states and perform work is the "reversible" heat δQrev. Thus a quantity that is a function of state is defined, entropy, where dS=δQrev/T. Here "d" stands for an exact differential (function of state) and "δ" stands for an inexact differential (function of path). Heat, in physics is _not_ "thermal energy in transfer". Thermal energy is the internal energy of the system that influences it's temperature. It is _impossible_ to difirentiate in classical thermodynamics this component of the internal energy of the system, however statistical thermodynamics shed light to the microscopical behaivor that implies such concepts as temperature, entropy and such... --Crio (talk) 23:46, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mass is not a form of energy -- it is present equally for all forms of energy[edit]

Mass is listed in this article as one of a number of forms of energy. In fact, every form of energy has mass. For a given amount of energy E in any form, the amount of mass it has is the same, given by m=E/c². For example, 1 kWh of energy (as on your electric bill) in any form contributes a mass of 40 nanograms to anything that contains this energy. It makes no sense to say that only particular forms of energy have or "are" mass and others don't or "aren't".

However, perhaps we could list "rest mass of an elementary particle" as a form of energy, instead of simply "mass".

In particle physics, there are reactions that convert and release some of that rest mass as other forms of energy such as kinetic and electromagnetic. (However, contrary to popular belief, it is mainly the Nuclear [Binding] Energy (already listed here), rather than the rest mass of the protons and neutrons in the nucleus, which is converted and released by nuclear fission. Of course the energy (thus mass) that remains is reduced by the amount of energy (thus mass) that is released out of the system, but this is true of all processes including ordinary combustion where it's just chemical energy that's being converted.)

I realize this page may become deprecated (which I'm not opposed to), in which case I should bring this up on the Energy page, which copies the same list from here. But currently the Energy page links to the present page so it makes sense to first change it here at the source.

DavRosen (talk) 20:04, 7 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mechanical energy[edit]

This article lists kinetic energy as one form of energy but it doesn't list potential energy. At Mechanical energy, Wikipedia states that mechanical energy is the sum of kinetic energy and potential energy. To be logical, this article should list mechanical energy instead of kinetic energy. I would be bold and make the change myself but the list exists somewhere else. I haven't found it so I can't edit it. I hope someone more knowledgeable in these things will do it for us. Dolphin (t) 08:20, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Does it not already state that? Which list are you referring to in

"the list exists somewhere else. I haven't found it so I can't edit it."? M∧Ŝc²ħε И_τlk 08:59, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The first words in the article state:

In the context of physical sciences, several forms of energy have been defined. These include:

If you try to edit these words by selecting ‘’edit source’’ all you see is {{Forms of energy}}. Dolphin (t) 12:21, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for clarifying, although you should be aware that {{forms of energy}} refers to template:Forms of energy (double curly brackets are templates), so the list can be edited there. I'll add mechanical energy to it. M∧Ŝc²ħε И_τlk 14:49, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that! Dolphin (t) 04:21, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If the article is going to list potential energy as well as some of its subtypes, then it can list mechanical energy as well as its subtypes such as kinetic. The forms listed don't have to all be at the lowest possible level or mutually-exclusive. DavRosen (talk) 14:50, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect[edit]

Strictly speaking, there are no forms of energy. There are means by which energy can be transferred between and within systems, but energy is energy is energy. If this article could be corrected to describe modes of energy transfer, that would be more accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.236.161.159 (talk) 19:47, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism[edit]

The article currently contains a table of different forms of energy. The last entry in this table is Benergy - The energy of Ben. This is clearly someone's idea of a joke. This entry can't be erased from this article because it is part of a table called {{Forms of energy}} hosted somewhere else. Could someone skilled in working with tables like this erase the entry about Benergy? Thanks. Dolphin (t) 08:02, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

User:Kylethelegobuilder has solved the problem. (Diff). Thank you. Dolphin (t) 04:02, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done

Someone has written "a really nice guy" as an obvious joke. Could someone revert or undo it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dalgard (talk • contribs) 22:27, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The joke has been erased. See diff. Dolphin (t) 02:38, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]