King's Canyon National Park in California.

The sun's energy produce clouds through evaporation.

1: Energy: Energy is an extremely difficult concept to define, But without energy, there would be nothing, not even time. Potential energy(1) is stored energy, like a liter of gas. Put that gas to work, and into kinetic energy(2) will it pass. The amount of potential and kinetic energy is always the same. Scientists call this, “Conservation of Energy”, quite a fancy name. An engine harnesses the power of potential energy sources. Doing something useful that an advanced society endorses. Do you know a hundred horses’ energy is in a gallon of gasoline? The technology used to harness that energy came from brains extremely keen. Work is the ability to harness potential energy and make it do something useful for us. Discovering potential energy sources like coal and oil was a really progressive plus. For no longer did humans have to depend solely on animal and human muscle power to get work done. Now humans, using fossil fuels (3), along with wind, solar, atomic and geothermal energy, made progress run! 1: Potential Energy-Energy which is stored and not in motion. An example would be a liter of gasoline. 2: Kinetic Energy-Energy that is being used. An example would be the turning wheels of a car which has harnessed the energy from the gasoline. 3: Fossil fuels are fuels, such as oil or coal, that are made of something that was once alive, in this case decayed plants from millions of years ago.

An exhibit on heat transfer.

All heat is transferred (moved from on thing to another) one of these three ways.

2: HEAT The more atoms vibrate, the more heat is produced, Sort of like restless school kids who are finally let loose. Heat is kinetic energy, which’s energy in motion. It often travels about causing all sorts of commotion. Heat can be transferred in a process called conduction, Like a pot on the stove, atoms energizing in synchronization. Humans have searched and found many different ways to produce heat, And using this energy through various means often ingeniously neat. The burning of fossil fuels or nuclear energy are two examples of this. Utilizing this energy in a useful way is the central gist. All engines depend on converting heat to useful energy, The internal combustion engine in your car is one you can clearly see. Yes, heat is energy and can be converted to all sorts of forms, But enough of this, come, gather around the fire, let’s get warm. Note:  See above exhibit for the three ways in which heat is transferred.

How sound waves are produced.

From "Matter and Energy",John Clark, 1994.

How electricity is generated in a power plant.

Electrons move the same way in a power plant as in static electricity.

3: SOUND Do you know sound is a form of energy? And like most energy, you cannot see That sound happens when something vibrates, Sometimes it’s beautiful and sometimes it grates. Sound has different wavelengths and produces wave motion. In a vacuum(4), sound is silent accepting no fulmination. It’s pressure change in the air that produces sound. Vibrating air molecules are moving all around A vacuum contains little, not even air. You could scream all night and you won't raise a hair. Without our atmosphere, there would be no music or speech. The universe is silent, don’t prattle or preach. There’s a corresponding wave when sound is produced, Which vibrates air molecules more as you turn up the juice. The greater the quantity of sound, the more air molecules vibrates. Remember that sound is a form of energy when you dance and gyrate. Frequency and length of a sound wave produces its pitch, And that will determine if a sound is squeaky or rich. Sound travels faster in water than on land, Sonars(5) must take this into account, understand? The important thing is that sound is caused by vibrations, And scientific laws of vibration work the same in every nation. 4: Vacuum-A space that contains no matter. Most of our universe is a vacuum. Remember, the next closest star after the sun is 27 trillion miles away. 5: Sonar-The sonar bounces sound waves at an enemy ship or sub and then measures the time it takes to bounce back to its source. If sound travels faster in water than on land, this must be accounted for otherwise the instrument will give an inaccurate location of the enemy ship or sub.

4: STATIC ELECTRICITY Molecules are made of atoms and atoms are made of even smaller stuff. They’re called protons, neutrons and electrons, and if that’s still not enough, Protons have a positive charge and electrons have a negative one, But there’s much more to this story before I am quite done. It’s because of this wondrous fact that we can electricity make. By building huge power plants, this energy we can generate. The trick is to move electrons and move they do quite fast. Because when an atom loses electrons, they want them back to the last. Every electron wants a proton and vice versa it will always be, And when that relationship is broken by us, they end up producing energy. How nice for us, this amazing fact, discovered only quite recently, For it’s hard to believe humans lived thousands of years without electricity. Now I am going to tell you something that I hope will to you make sense, That will explain to you why touching metal can sometimes make you tense. It’s called static electricity, that is when atoms somehow lose their electrons, Caused by you, by rubbing you feet on something frictional, when you walk or run. Now these atoms want their electrons back, which to them you have just robbed, So when you touch metal, you get a shock, but the atoms are only doing their job. For all they want is to keep the number of protons and electrons the same. When you rubbed them off, they want them back from whence they originally came. Lightning too, is static electricity, in this case between two clouds, Producing a shock wave called thunder, which we know can be quite loud. The wonder of the atom is a mystery, we are with still not done, But come, let’s admire it, and at the same time have some fun!

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