Ether (Space); Force and energy; Gravitation; Matter
All these are different forms of potential energy. Under the head of
fuel he includes not only wood, coal, but also all forms of matter that
may be used or burnt up by heat, or dissolved by chemical agencies. Thus
zinc and lead, which are used in batteries, are merely forms of fuel.
That potential energy resides in such things as wood and coal is a
matter of common experience. All our coal-fields are stores of energy,
which received their energy when in plant form, ages ago, from the sun,
and this energy is now being used to drive our machinery, to warm our
houses, and to give light to our homes and our cities. It has been
calculated that a pound of coal would give out 14,000 heat units, which
is equal to 11,000,000 foot-pounds of work, which is also equal to the
amount of work a horse can do in five hours. Again, all food, whether it
be the food of animals, as vegetables and plants, or of man, as bread,
meat, etc., are all forms of potential energy, or energy which is stored
up in matter. All forms of food have a certain amount of energy in them,
which is used up in the body in building up waste tissue and imparting
energy to the physical frame.
Again, all forms of water-power, whether it be in the form of the
flowing river or the tidal motion of the sea, possess a large amount of
potential energy which may be used up to do mechanical work. They also
possess kinetic energy, or energy of motion. We find illustrations of
the possession of potential energy by rivers and tides, in the fact that
by their fall from a higher to a lower level they may be made to do
mechanical work, as in the case of the turning of the water-wheel by the
fall of the water, which motion is communicated to machinery, and
various forms of work are the result. In Switzerland and America
advantage is being taken of the energy of falling water to generate
electricity, by means of which villages and towns are being supplied
with electric light at a very small cost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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