ENERGY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 48, 28 November 1891, Page 631

ENERGY.

Energy is potential and active. Potential is simply stored energy, power to do work. The water in the reservoir is the same as the water a hundred feet lower, but it can do work that the other cannot, because it has energy stored in it. When that water is running down the hill and turning the wheel, it shows its actual energy. The earth involving is another case of stored up energy, as is also a wheel in motion. A spring is an example of elastic energy. In a boiler we have kinetic energy transformed from the heat of the fire. These are all mechanical forms of energy. The cannon ball shot into the air shows energy of motion in its ascent. When it reaches the highest point, it has energy of position. Besides this there is energy of temperature, which the hot cannon ball possesses. There is another or electric energy, another chemical and another radiant. Every form of energy is convertible into any other, sometimes at so great waste as to be impracticable for use. In converting mechanical energy into heat it is almost perfectly efficient, but in converting heat to mechanical motion 90 per cent, is lost. The energy of heat is disorgan ised as contrasted with the organised, direct energy of motion. A disorganised army, each soldier going his own way, can do little. The tendency in nature is to degrade energy.