Simplifying the Energy Zoo

Variety is the spice of life, not of science. The figure shows a few examples from the bewildering array of forms of energy that surrounds us. The physicist's psyche rebels against the prospect of a long laundry list of types of energy, each of which would require its own equations, concepts, notation, and terminology. The point at which we've arrived in the study of energy is analogous to the period in the 1960's when a half a dozen new subatomic particles were being discovered every year in particle accelerators. It was an embarrassment. Physicists began to speak of the particle zoo, and it seemed that the subatomic world was distressingly complex. The particle zoo was simplified by the realization that most of the new particles being whipped up were simply clusters of a previously unsuspected set of more fundamental particles (which were whimsically dubbed quarks, a made-up word from a line of poetry by James Joyce, Three quarks for Master Mark.) The energy zoo can also be simplified, and it is the purpose of this chapter to demonstrate the hidden similarities between forms of energy as seemingly different as heat and motion.

A vivid demonstration that heat is a form of motion. A small amount of boiling water is poured into the empty can, which rapidly fills up with hot steam. The can is then sealed tightly, and soon crumples. This can be explained as follows. The high temperature of the steam is interpreted as a high average speed of random motions of its molecules. Before the lid was put on the can, the rapidly moving steam molecules pushed their way out of the can, forcing the slower air molecules out of the way. As the steam inside the can thinned out, a stable situation was soon achieved, in which the force from the less dense steam molecules moving at high speed balanced against the force from the more dense but slower air molecules outside. The cap was put on, and after a while the steam inside the can began to cool off. The force from the cooler, thin steam no longer matched the force from the cool, dense air outside, and the imbalance of forces crushed the can.