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Energy started as a concept, was defined as the ability to do work, and has been missunderstood since Einstein. What is it? What properties does it have? Can it be isolated and tested in any way? Can you keep some in a jar? Is there any way to identify the presence of"pure energy"? Everybody, from healers to physicists use the word "energy", without any clear idea of precisely what they have in mind. It is a convenient way of saying "we havent really got a clue what it is we are talking about, but it sounds as though we might" without admitting just how ridiculous this would sound if actually stated.
If I hit a snooker ball with a cue, does some of this mysterious substance flow from my hand, though the cue and into the ball? Energy is simply a concept that helps us quantify aspects of motion and calculate effects. All energy, even chemical, depends on motion and all motion has to be relative. How much energy something is SAID to have depends on the veiwpoint of the observer, so it cannot be a quantity of SOMETHING, it has to be simply a considered aspect of motion.
Feynman admitted this nonsense when he said that nobody (in physics at the time) knows what energy is and then went on to say that it is an "abstract thing". If it is abstract, it cannot be a "thing" as yet to be discovered or understood, it is just a useful concept. The words "abstract THING" are a contradiction, indicative of wooly thinking.
Mass is not an alternative name for matter, it is, like energy, a property of matter i.e. the resistance to change of motion, whereas energy is simply the ability to overcome resistance to motion (which includes the ability to cause vibration - heat). Because these words have been used in a way that relates them together in equations, it does not follow that one can be turned into the other. That's alchemy, not science. If I say a=5b does it mean that I can take a letter 'a' and turn it into 5 letter 'b's?
"Energy" has ceased to have clear definition and has come to mean "something that could explain everything, if only we had the slightest notion of what it is".
Can anything be further removed from "science"? |
