Energy, Empowering the Universe
The universe is composed of several different components holding it all together. Matter is the stuff which you can feel. It makes up the chair you're sitting in, the glasses you're reading through. Simply put as a textbook definition, matter is anything with mass, something of a universal standard for weight. Now weight is actually gravity's effect on matter, but it's still the same idea. Gravity is thought to encompass all matter, rather mass, and greater mass will have a greater amount of gravity generated. But what does this all add up to? How does matter move, and where does this stuff come from? Energy.
Kinetic, Chemical, Nuclear... I Need a Dictionary!
So energy allows matter to actually do things, but let's give it a more concrete picture. Potential energy is the capability of matter to move and do things. For example, matter with more potential would be able to use more of this power, and enriched uranium has a huge potential for nuclear fission, which is why it's used most often to generate electricity. Something higher up has more gravity potential because it can move further towards the center of gravity. An object in the center of gravity has no gravity potential because the gravity exerted on it is equal in all directions, so a person in the middle of the Earth would actually feel weightless! When you lift your arm, you're using energy to move your arm through space and away from gravity, but you're also gaining gravity potential because then your arm can drop back down to your side, thus resetting the whole process.
Energy doesn't have a measurement, but it's defined as the amount of work someone does. Rather, it should be defined as the amount of work someone is capable of doing to include potential at the same time. Force and work both have measurements, but energy does not because it includes these things. Likewise, matter itself doesn't have a measurement because it includes dimensions (height, width, and length), mass, and consequently weight. Another interesting characteristic of energy is that it does not create or destroy itself or is even capable of being destroyed or created by any outside force.
The closest it can come is to change into matter and vice versa. Therefore, nuclear fission which breaks apart atoms loses a little bit of matter, but it changes into energy. This also helps explain why objects in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Ultimately, energy allows us to do anything at all, and this is just a very brief outline of the concept. There really is a universe of knowledge to learn, and learning about energy will help you understand the universe.
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