How energy became unreal in science
Richard Feynman, a well respected, now deceased physicist, described energy as a calculated number that did not change after nature had done her tricks. He said, energy didn’t provide a reason for the various formulae used and that physics had no knowledge of the reality of energy. His remarks annoy many current scientists who say energy is well understood.
Yet, I see Brian Cox, in his Wonders of Life series, saying that the meaning of energy is woolly and its nature difficult to pin down. Brian tells us he does work and expends energy carrying water in a glass to a waterfall’s top. He multiplies the mass of the water m by the height of his would be carry h and then by the gravity acceleration g to find that energy and work done. He then says the water would have such gravitational potential energy (g.p.e.).
The water has no knowledge of its changed height and any future fall height is purely speculative, yet, we are content to assign a stored g.p.e. of mgh to it. There’s clearly no reality in that? We further say that the water’s weight is mg, the result of a force of attraction and consider it as unchanged in the relocation. In this blog I will later explain why this force of attraction, whilst appearing to apply mathematically, is also unreal.
Any acceleration a, over a distance s, from stationary will result in a velocity as given by the equation of motion v2 = 2as (2gh in our gravity case). It means gh = 1/2v2 which leads to mgh = 1/2mv2, an equality with units of energy. We say gravity has done work changing location based stored g.p.e. to motion based kinetic energy and use the equality to introduce students to the idea of energy conservation. But whilst the equality works the accompanying picture is unreal.
The concept of g.p.e. is “woolly” but so is the idea of motion based energy. If we jumped from the top of the waterfall with the glass of water, then relative to us the water would have no fall height and attain no velocity. Its g.p.e. and motion energy would both be zero and conserved but not the same as that calculated by a ground observer and also conserved. Clearly these forms of energy are, as Feynman said, calculable numbers.
Concepts of gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy were in place long before we knew of the atomic world, long before Einstein had linked energy to mass in his famous E = mc2 and also long before Planck had linked radiated energy to frequency in his E = hf. So its not unreasonable to ask if the earlier versions of energy are separate from and therefore energies in their own right or just aspects of those, later established, matter and radiation energies.
The reality of force and energy in gravity
In 1687 Newton gave us a universal gravity law in which all objects attracted other objects. Large masses were seen to do much more attracting than small masses. An attractive force was thought to emanate from the earth; it pulled objects down and weirdly varied with the mass of the object it pulled. The much more massive sun was what attracted earth and the planets toward it.
Over 200 years later Einstein was telling us we feel no force in a gravity fall. Even so, he still thought that something “remarkably imparted the same acceleration to all bodies”. His general theory of relativity gave us maths that succeeded where Newton’s had failed; it gave us a picture in which space time caused matter movements and in which matter curved space time. Contrary to what many think, It did not explain the why of gravity, and the quantum mechanics that followed it, did not even apply to gravity.
We say the weight of an object held above earth is mg and like Brian Cox, regard this g as the acceleration due to gravity. But what has g got to do with a held object? Let’s replace g with d, a desire, per kilogram of object mass, for earth radiations so that the weight of an object is md. Does that not make more sense? A desire d arising in whatever is the mass of an object is different to an acceleration g, yet they have the same value and units as Newton’s second law had linked force to acceleration as F = ma (mg for gravity). It means F/m = g = D/m = d. where D is total object desire.
Even though equal D and F are not the same. The former is a desire that comes from within an object, the latter is a Newtonian impressed force F, as per his first law of 1687 which acted on bodies and often from a distance.. It was an idea not without its critics. In the 1700’s Emilie du Chatelet, a noblewoman, philosopher and translator of Newton’s works had not been impressed by the idea of impressed forces. She saw bodies, not as of inactive matter, but as causal agents, and force as a body property.
If we had accepted her view of forces and not that of Newton, our view would now be one in which charged particles and particle structures each determine how they respond to radiated energies coming from other charges or structures. There would be no external forces, no force fields, no force carriers and no actions at a distance. Einstein’s gravity in space would be one of the energy of particulate matter moving to get and process space radiations and space radiations curving to satisfy the desires of particulate matter. The energies attracted are not only relatively small but also controlled, which is why the earth particles exercising their desires for sun radiated energies are seen to move in orbit.
We feel no force in a free fall because our particles are desiring, absorbing, processing and emitting earth radiations in a way freely decided by them. We feel internal pressures only when our particle structure is being distorted by and so resisting energies it doesn’t want. When we get close to earth particles, energy of 1/2mv2 has to decelerate us. An energy pulse passes through us distorting our structure. Our particles then set about releasing such unwanted energy so as to return to their former preferred arrangement.
Living energy is not confined to gravity.
The concept of energy as alive and proactive within particulate matter provides many answers. In quantum mechanics, for example, many are puzzled as to why we can only get acceptable probabilities for an action by taking into account all possibilities, including those we know won’t happen. The reason is that in deciding how to act, particles consider all of the possibilities surround energies offer. Our maths have to do likewise.
We regard ourselves as special yet we, and all living structures, are of the same particles as make for non living structures. Particles, over considerable time, evolved our complex human structure. They did so as they ever seek structures that better serve their energy desires. So we exist to serve our particle desires. Stress, mental health and gender issues are all signs that we aren’t doing that to their satisfaction. They don’t value wealth and possessions, live on when we die and they could manage without us as a species. They were doing that just a mere 200,000 years ago.
We may struggle to see inactive structures as living and proactive but look at them and note how the energies they are sending our way are related to what the sun is sending their way. Touch them and feel how their particles resist the approach of ours and how they convey different textures to us. Try to pull them apart or visibly distort them; for most structures you will find that impossible to do, even though particles account for less than 0.0001% of the space volume of a structure they are in.. Realise that your difficulty in doing so is because of how strongly a particles structures want to remain together.
Structures only change if it suits them. We can cause changes but only by providing the energy conditions under which a structure’s particles will decide to change. Particles in a stable, energy efficient structure make every effort to resist change. It is why a cricket ball will flee from a cricket bat. It is also why protons seek to stay ahead of the light speed energies chasing them in colliders. If they could somehow maintain light speed they would shed the unwanted energies that are distorting them and adding to their mass.
A neutron is far from neutral. It proactively acts when an unstable structure needs more energy by becoming an electron and proton. Electrons and protons have different roles to play and have different desires. The more mobile electrons are very much the getters of radiated energy and they and protons link up and cooperate so as to control the energy desires of all structural particles including neutrons. The why of light speed is the rate at which particles seek to process the energies they choose.
Chemical, nuclear, states of matter, expansion changes, thermal flows, electrical flows, electromagnetic interactions and actions in solid state devices are all the result of particle energy desires. They all involve changes to matter particles and their interacting radiations. Generally if particles can more stably and more efficiently interact with environmental energy by changing to a different particle arrangement or structural form they will seek the opportunity to do so.
A living energy model
In all of the above I have spoken of energy and its desires. In my living energy model energy is far from just a calculable number. It is the fundamental basis of everything, both that which has desires and that which is desired. Every action and change we see is a result of energy wanting to make some adjustment. In a gravity fall we simply have object energy desiring radiated energy. There is no stored g.p.e. and no motion based kinetic energy. Our concept of them made energy unreal.
Conserved energy is in particulate matter and in the radiations of space that they desire and which link them together. Why the particles of matter have a desire to get and control radiated energies I know not. The answer to that may well be within hitherto unexplored particulate matter. Such desires vary because different particles and different particle configurations have different energy needs; it is why energy actions are so varied. What those actions all have in common is a desire by particles to get and process energy in the most efficient way possible
Discovery of the atomic world should have enhanced our understanding of the macro world, but it didn’t. Instead of trying to reconcile the two, scientists started new branches of quantum related physics. The living energy model, described here better links the classical and quantum worlds whilst finding that many of the explanations in both are wrong, even when the associated mathematics gives the right answers.
This model attempts to explain the why of what happens, which is something scientists seem to have given up on and left to philosophers. Scientists are instead solely interested in delivering mathematics that describes what happens. I don’t pretend to understand much of the more advanced mathematics. I can only guess that if the simpler stuff is not representative of reality, then it too is full of misconceptions.
Currently, energy in physics has no reality, even though everything and every action in our universe involves it. By contrast a concept of energy as a living thing in both matter and radiation makes it a reality that explains and brings together behaviours in both macro and micro worlds.