What is Energy?

Recently I was in one of my classes and the topic was energy. My teacher asked us "what is energy?" I thought this should be a cinch for me to answer... After all I studied computer engineering for 4 years including classes in physics, chemistry and electrical engineering. As I listened to my teacher, I was amazed to discover what I did and did not know about energy.

According to the dictionary, energy is "a fundamental entity of nature that is transferred between parts of a system in the production of physical change within the system and usually regarded as the capacity for doing work."^[1] In other words it can get transferred and it can do work. So that's what energy can do, but what IS it?

There are different forms of energy including radiant, chemical, thermal, mechanical (kinetic or potential), electric, nuclear and electromagnetic. Energy can be changed from one form into another. So that's where energy can be found or what it can look like, but what IS it?

Then there's the famous E=mc². Almost everyone can spout out the formula but considerably fewer people actually know what it means. Without actually describing the formula itself, it basically explains how all matter (matter = anything that takes up space) is just a form of energy. Energy is energy and matter is energy... everything is energy. So everything is energy, but what IS it?

I'm not really here to give you any answers on this point, but to get you thinking about energy. As "good" as science is, it doesn't have all the answers in this area. There may be forms of energy we haven't quite figured out how to measure yet. Sometimes when people hear about energy healing they get scared; but if on some level everything is energy, then healing on an energetic level makes some sort of sense. The universe of energy is only beginning to be discovered and I can't wait to see where it leads us!

[1] Merriam-Webster, s.v. "Energy," http://www.merriam-webster.com/ (accessed March 27, 2011).

Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net