Citizen Science by Jamie Zvirzudin
Solving the mysteries of energy: A year of learning about energy
This year’s Citizen Science column focuses on one of the most interesting, beautiful, and useful quantities in science: energy. Last year, we covered intellectual curiosity, critical thinking skills, scientific literacy, the interaction of faith and science, and the virtues of patience and honesty in science. These skills and qualities prepared us for our next quest: reclaiming the concept of energy from its pseudoscientific critics. Many organizations claim to use or manipulate energy for our benefit, including practices such as Reiki, crystal healing, aura reading, chakra balancing, therapeutic touch, magnetic therapy, homeopathy, astrology, and energy healing. We are promoting.
Although these practices are common and often have historical and cultural significance, they are not supported by empirical evidence. They rely on personal belief (and the placebo effect) and anecdotal evidence (testimonies) rather than scientific testing. While there is no doubt that they bring some comfort to those who are suffering, their ability to actually use their energy to help us is greatly exaggerated.
I think we fall prey to this kind of pseudoscience because we don’t fully understand what energy is. Finding reliable and accessible sources of information is difficult. Some scientists and skeptics, cloaked in their proud cloaks of jargon, rely on priestly priesthood, as do many pseudoscientific practitioners, in guarding and enforcing the esoteric secrets of the universe. It plays such a role and is not very useful. But energy is essentially the foundational pillar of the physical world, influencing everything from the universe to the mundane. Owning this energy can have tremendous benefits in our lives. Real energy with real impacts, including power, transportation, communications, health care, food production, education and research, quality of life and comfort, economic development, renewable energy and sustainability, emergency services, and disaster response. our life. Our series this year unpacks this concept and celebrates the scientific understanding of energy in its myriad forms.
To introduce you to the different energy flavors we’re featuring this year, imagine you’re taking a break from work and enjoying some lunch time at a nearby beach. Your muscles stretch and your feet hit the ground as you sprint down the hill to the beach. Your smartphone and its lithium-ion battery power the earbuds, filling your ears with music. Around you, the Earth’s magnetic field protects you from the worst of harmful cosmic ray radiation. It’s time for you to reach the beach and collapse on the sand to rest. Eating a granola bar will start to restore your energy and your heart rate will return to normal. As the sun warms your skin and waves crash against the shore, you think about the energy that holds atoms together and accelerates the expansion of the universe. You are a living nexus of all these energies, from the quantum to the cosmic, and you are more beautiful and real than any crystal, magnetic bracelet, chakra alignment, quantum healing, or imaginary energy created by Mercury in retrograde. It’s interesting and exciting. In this moment of stillness, lying in the sun, on the sand, you become aware of the ebbs and flows of this powerful energy. This is evidence of the invisible, unappreciated, but measurable forces that animate the universe.
Let’s begin by defining energy and tracing its history in the Oxford English Dictionary to better understand energy.I like the etymology of the word energy, which comes from ancient Greek Energeia Originally it means “activity, activity, effectiveness.” As far as we know, Aristotle was the first to use the term to talk about possibility and reality, that is, what is possible and what happens when that possibility is realized through movement, change, or activity. Did.
Much later, in the 17th century, another polymath named Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz came up with the following concept: Viva, or “power to live”, now called kinetic energy. This up-and-coming idea was developed by a third genius polymath, Thomas Young, who not only showed that light is a wave, but also helped decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs carved on the Stone of Rosetta. It was renamed Energy. The OED currently states that energy is defined as: “The potential or ability of an object or system to perform work due to its movement, position, chemical structure, etc.” It further states that energy is measurable and can be “harvested, transferred, and consumed.” In other words, energy is the ability to cause change or perform work.
Energy also has other properties. Because the laws of physics do not change arbitrarily over time, energy is conserved and cannot be created or destroyed. You can transfer it to another form of energy, but you can’t pull it out of thin air or make it disappear. I imagine the universe as an attentive child counting Halloween candies like I used to do, accumulating every bit of sweet energy (every joule of energy is the standard unit of energy). Please try it. You might trade with me or do me some nice things, but you’re not going to give me unrestricted access to my stash (yes, I was a stingy kid) .
Or imagine a dragon guarding a glittering treasure trove. Every joule must be held accountable, and any pseudoscience practitioner who shows up to steal any energy will be eaten alive. If you want to obtain that treasure of energy, you must follow the laws of the universe. We need to work within our systems using real science and proven methods, not wishful thinking and pseudoscientific shortcuts.
This year, join us in bridging the gap between understanding energy in the scientific sense and using it in everyday life. As we learn more about energy, we can also adopt practical and proven methods to increase our own energy levels. These include prioritizing getting enough sleep, nurturing your body with a healthy diet, staying well hydrated, exercising regularly, and limiting alcohol and smoking. , reduce your caffeine intake and manage your stress. This year’s exploration of the basics of energy promises to be more than just education. It will be transformative. By putting knowledge into action, we increase our daily happiness and vitality. After all, when we work on something, energy is transferred there, and that includes ourselves.
Jamie Zvirzudin studies cosmic rays with the Telescope Array Project, teaches science writing at Johns Hopkins University, and is the author of Subatomic Writing.
