ENERGY

In the last release, we have talked about colours and the mechanism how it was defined. It was quite weird that the colours of various bodies are basically known by the colour it rejects. Ironical, if you extend this to human behavioural arena, interesting concepts may come out.

Today, we would like to see a more fundamental concept of science, namely the energy. As usual, we will continue to avoid large technical jargons or complicated theories and calculation.

	ENERGY
1.0	In our day to day we use many words for that “something” which helps us to do some work. Sometimes it is strength, and at times power, energy, motion / movement, force etc. etc. Fair enough; but ironically, each of the word mentioned here scientifically carries different meaning- but let us leave those analysis to the geeks- and concentrate on the single thing which we generally want to convey is the “Energy” – whether it comes from a popular drink or from the bat of Sachin Tendulkar and anywhere in between.
2.0	Science say energy is something that makes something capable of doing some “work”. That’s what we illiterates started with and what is so great about it? Not much really. Therefore now we would move to a nice sentence which our great scientists have curved on the tablet of human knowledge that “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only transformed from one form to the other”. This sentence is not too complicated, but somewhat a little confusing also- kya bhai- a person working in power generation business- and said “hum bijli banate hain”- but for the time being let us keep the doubts for a little later. But this sentence forced us to delve a little more about a new word which has crept in, namely the “Form”. We will straightway list them out and see whether they abide by the two properties that whether they can do some work (only the English meaning of the word) and whether they can be converted to other forms.
3.0	There have been seven forms of energy generally doing the rounds, when we started studying science; with an eighth one entered the lexicon with its sheer presence couple of decades ago. The popular forms were kind of codified in seven letters (like we do VIBGYOR for components of light). It used to be LCMMESH standing for Light, Chemical, Mechanical, Magnetic, Electrical, Sound, and Heat. The newly added one was Atomic- as two Japanese cities had to be destroyed for this new kid on the block made a grand entry.
4.0	Now let us try to try to how each of them can do some work and get converted. Since the common understanding of the word “work” is related to motion, we will first talk about some conversion from one form to others; the work part will automatically follow. Some conversions are through some intermediate conversions- but I will skip those to avoid complications)
5.0	a) Light converts into electrical in solar cell, into heat by solar heater or sun bathing (with a bikini on or without) - into chemical in the process of trees / plants get their food. Go on looking, you can get many others
	b) Chemicals create heat by reactions (mainly by burning). Some chemical process cool as well. You get light by burning oil or logs as well. The ‘bombs create lot of sound.
	c) Mechanical energy is one of the most visible energy forms as anything in motion carries capacity to work (called kinetic energy). However an item in rest also can have lot of energy. Take a stone to few meter height and drop on somebody’s head. Mechanical energy with some help from magnetic energy generates electricity (remember the generators). To stones rubbed can create light and heat spark to start fire. A train in motion can generate huge sound as well.
	d) Magnetic energy is not much seen – but is very capable it its work. They play silent roles in electrical motors (in all industries as well as household devices) and transformers (not the HBO / Star movie types) It creates mechanical motion in motors with the help of electricity in electrical motor or motion in cars with the help of chemical energy of diesel or petrol.
	e) Electrical energy is most popular energy as slowly the human civilization is trying to convert all forms of energy to electricity and then use them for other transformations. Electricity is used for lighting (all lamps), heat (heaters, geysers etc), sound (calling bells), magnetic (transformers / electro magnets) etc.
	f) Sound actually is a result of some very tiny mechanical motions. Direct conversion of sound to electricity in microphones and reverse in the speakers are its best manifestation. Breaking of glass windows when huge crackers / bombs are another example of conversion of sound energy to mechanical.
	g) Heat is also a very abundantly used form of energy as we get heat from any conversion either as a main product and a byproduct. This I would leave to the readers to make a list and post back.
	h) I would not write about atomic energy as it is difficult to explain its formation. But it is suffice to say that if we really can harness its potential minus the side-effects- life of average American citizens will increase as they would not have to poke their many-time bloodied noses in the non-American oil-rich areas.
6.0	Was it a little heavy? Awaiting your reactions!!