Energy

From EvoWiki

Energy is a fundamental physical quantity associated with any system. The energy of a given state of a system can be defined as the amount of work (a specified force acting through a specified distance) that necessary to put the system in that state.

Kinetic energy

Kinetic energy is the amount of energy that a system has due to its motion. The amount of work (roughly force*distance) that it would take to accelerate an object from zero to a given velocity is the amount of kinetic energy the object has at that velocity. Because velocity is a relativistically varying quantity, an object's kinetic energy depends on one's reference frame.

Potential energy

Potential energy is the energy a system has due to its position within a force field of a given type (e.g. gravitational, electromagnetic). Because position is not an absolute quantity, potential energy is also a relativistically variant quantity.

Energy in living things

Organisms use energy to power their life processes. The source of the majority of energy in Earth's ecosystems is ultimately the sun, though a small minority of organisms do subsist off of thermal energy from volcanic steam vents, and others subsist on the chemical energy of molecules available in their environment whose synthesis were not powered by the sun.

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