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Einstein

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one of the most frequently asked questions in science

It seems that “What is energy?” is one of the most often-asked science questions on the internet. There are many articles and videos attempting to offer explanation, but the answers are found to be wanting.

Energy, it is said, is the ability to do work. It’s a good start, but this answer speaks more to what energy does than to what it is. Similarly, the origin of the word energy, with its Greek root “ergon,” means “[related to] work” or, by extension, “movement within.” Energy allows work to be performed; that is, work, as physicists use the term, the result of a force acting upon matter and moving it.

Very often we find energy defined in terms of its various states or modes of expression; for example,

kinetic energy

potential energy

chemical energy

nuclear energy

mechanical energy

and several others. But none of these tells us what energy actually is.

we have no idea what energy is

Though energy is sometimes called “the central concept of science,” Nobel laureate Dr. Richard Feynman stated frankly: “It is important to understand in physics today we have no idea what energy is.”

early questions

In 1676 Leibniz, co-creator of calculus with Newton, began to ask the question, what happens in the collision of two billiard balls?

One hits the other, one moves the other - is something transferred between them? Leibniz conceived of something real and substantive passing from one to the other. He called it a “living force.” He believed that God had injected into the universe a finite, though very large, amount of energy, a “living force,” at the moment of creation. This quantity, he said, would be conserved, unchanging, though continually expressed variously.

set free in violent ways

He perceived that, in gunpowder, fire, or steam, the “living force” was being set free in violent ways. He understood that, if the “living force” could be captured and tamed, it would become an incalculable benefit to humankind. (See more on this in Prof. Jim Al-Khalili’s video “What Is Energy?”)

David Bodanis, the author of E=mc², informs us that the modern concept of energy is less than 200 years old. Before this, it’s not that people weren’t aware that there were different powers in the world – wind, electricity, gravity, and many more – but, in terms of broad acceptance, there was no general understanding of these as different manifestations of an underlying reality.

Faraday's monumental insight of integration

This began to change in the 1830s when Michael Faraday discovered that electricity is a form of magnetism and magnetism is a form of electricity. Armed with this insight of integration, Faraday invented the first electric motor. This harnessing of energy, with potential work-output far beyond the muscles of horses and humans, set the world on fire and opened the doors to great industrial advancement. The cat was out of the bag now, and scientists the world over raced to investigate other possible hidden connections among the energies of nature.

Editor’s note: Michael Faraday, from the working class of Britain, lacked a formal education. But he loved knowledge with a burning passion and was determined to become a man of knowledge. At the time, Sir Humphry Davy, having discovered some of the first chemical elements, was the most celebrated scientist in England. A chance meeting with Faraday led to Davy offering the young bookbinder-apprentice a job as a lab assistant. In not too many years, the unknown Faraday would eclipse the fame of his mentor (who did not appreciate the competition). One of the jokes making the rounds in Davy’s day was, Sir Humphry was a fine scientist with many achievements to his credit, but his greatest discovery was Michael Faraday (smile).

We are astonished to learn just how far we’ve come in the last hundred years. In 1900 not even the nucleus of the atom had yet been discovered. In the next 20 years, though, super strides in discovery and understanding of the atom were enjoyed. However, a definition of energy is not to be equated with atomic energy – this is but one more mode of expression of the larger concept.

Einstein helped us to understand that, locked within the core of an atom, there are storehouses of energy in previously unfathomed amounts. But even this does not tell us what energy is. We are tempted to say that we’re back to Dr. Feynman’s assertion that “we have no idea what energy is.”

a new view of energy challenging the materialistic mindset

However, there is a growing group of physicists today who suggest otherwise. These disagree with the materialistic paradigm of current scientific thought and posit that Consciousness is the most basic element of the universe, not matter, and that all things are derived from Consciousness. See the “Evolution” article for discussion on this.

With this view, energy, with the phenomenon of "life" itself, becomes an expression of Consciousness. In this regard, Leibniz may have been closest to the reality of things.