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Compared to the idea of a force....
The asteroid or comet that hit the Yucatan probably...
Something has energy if...
Heat is energy that raises the temperature of matter.
We might include a tank of gasoline, a battery, water backed up behind a dam, a stretched out piece of elastic material, or a flying brick.
Plants develop photosynthesis
...They are able use solar energy falling on them to synthesize sugars, which can be burned later when the sun isn't shining.
Coalbrookdale by night by Phillipp Jakob Loutherbourg
The foundry at Coalbrookdale was one of the first coke-fired furnaces. Coke was made from bituminous coal.
Coal (and oil) are the remains of plants and organic matter, containing a large amount of easy-to-extract energy--just light it!
The industrial revolution came about as people realized they could build machines and huge manufacturing processes based on burning fossil fuels - coal. Only the wealthy could afford to build such infrastructure, and benefitted from it the most, ushering in an era of Capitalism.
Gram for gram, which substance has more energy (per gram)--Chocolate chip cookies or TNT?
How to measure this energy??
Calories (~ Watt $\cdot$ hours) | |
Bullet (moving at speed of sound) | 0.01 |
Battery (auto) | 0.03 |
ThermalE in water | 0.05 |
Battery (alkaline) | 0.15 |
TNT (trinitrotoluene) | 0.65 |
Modern explosive (PETN) | 1 |
Chocolate chip cookies | 5 |
Coal, or Ethanol (alcohol) | 6 |
Butter | 7 |
Gasoline | 10 |
Natural gas (methane) | 13 |
Hydrogen | 26 |
Asteroid @ 30 km / s | 100 |
Uranium 235 | 20 $\times 10^6$ |
From Richard Muller, Physics for Presidents.
NYCArthur, Al, Jason Rogers, Daniel Williams, Nicholas T, Tim Pearce, Chandru Ramkumar, Chris, Bu, Ville Miettinen
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