Conservation of energy
Key Concepts
• A fundamental principle of physics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed, although it can be converted from one
form to another.
• The sum of all forms of energy remains constant in any isolated or closed system.
• Newton’s laws of motion ensure that the energy of a total system is not changed by collisions or other interactions of
the system’s parts.
The principle stating that energy cannot be created or destroyed, although it can be changed from one form to
another. The law of conservation of energy has been established by a multitude of meticulous measurements of gains and
losses of all known forms of energy. Some parts or particles of the system may gain energy, but others must lose just as
much. Thus, in any isolated or closed system, the sum of all forms of energy remains constant. The energy of the system
may be interconverted among many different forms (see illustration), including mechanical, electrical, magnetic, thermal,
chemical, and nuclear forms. Moreover, as time progresses, it tends to become less and less available. However, within the
limits of small experimental uncertainty, no change in total amount of energy has been observed in any situation in which it
has been possible to ensure that energy has not entered or left the system in the form of work or heat. For a system that is
both gaining and losing energy in the form of work and heat, as is true of any machine in operation, the energy principle
asserts that the net gain of energy is equal to the total change of the system’s internal energy. See also:
CONSERVATION LAWS (PHYSICS); ENERGY; ENERGY CONVERSION; THERMODYNAMIC PRINCIPLES.
Application to life processes
The energy principle also applies to life processes. For instance, the quantity of heat obtained by burning food equivalent to
the daily food intake of an animal is found to be equal to the daily amount of energy released by the animal in the forms of
heat, work done, and energy in the waste products. (It is assumed that the animal is not gaining or losing weight.) Studies
with similar results have been made of photosynthesis—the process upon which the existence of practically all plant and
animal life ultimately depends. See also: METABOLISM; PHOTOSYNTHESIS.
A group
The of wind turbines;
conservation brown
of energy mountains
allows andbeblue
energy to sky are in theamong
interconverted background
many different forms. In the use of wind
power, for example, the kinetic energy of wind (movements of air) can be converted by turbine blades into
electrical energy. (Credit: Ron Thomas Getty Images)
Conservation of mechanical energy
There are many ways in which the principle of conservation of energy may be stated, depending on the intended application.
Examples are the various methods of stating the first law of thermodynamics, the work–kinetic energy theorem, and the
assertion that perpetual motion of the first kind is impossible. Of particular interest is the special form of the principle
known as the principle of conservation of mechanical energy (kinetic E,k plus potential E,p), which states that mechanical
energy of any system of bodies connected together in any way is conserved, provided that the system is free of all frictional
forces, including internal friction that could arise during collisions of the bodies of the system. Although frictional or other
nonconservative forces are always present in any actual situation, their effects in many cases are so small that the principle
of conservation of mechanical energy is a very useful approximation. Thus, for a missile or satellite traveling high in space,
the dissipative effects arising from such sources as the residual air and meteoric dust are so exceedingly small that the loss of
mechanical energy (E,k + E,p) of the body as it proceeds along its trajectory may, for many purposes, be disregarded. See also:
FRICTION; PERPETUAL MOTION.
Mechanical equivalent of heat
In the middle of the nineteenth century, James Prescott Joule and others demonstrated the equivalence of heat and work by
showing experimentally that a definite quantity of heat always appears for every definite amount of work done against
friction. Experiments usually were so arranged that the heat generated was absorbed by a given quantity of water, and it was
observed that a given expenditure of mechanical energy always produced the same rise of temperature in the water. The
resulting numerical relation between quantities of mechanical energy and heat is called the Joule equivalent, which is also
known as the mechanical equivalent of heat.
Conservation of mass-energy
In view of the principle of equivalence of mass and energy in the restricted theory of relativity, the classical principle of
conservation of energy must be regarded as a special case of the principle of conservation of mass-energy. However, this
more general principle should be invoked only when dealing with certain nuclear phenomena or when speeds comparable
, ,
with the speed of light (3.00 × 10 5 km∕s or 1.86 × 10 5 mi∕s) are
involved. See also: RELATIVITY.
Laws of motion
Because the sum of all forms of energy in an isolated or closed system remains constant, the actual behavior of all parts or
particles of the system (and thus of the whole system itself) obeys certain laws of motion. Therefore, these laws of motion
must be such that the energy of the total system is not changed by collisions or other interactions of its parts. See also:
MOTION; NEWTON’S LAWS OF MOTION.
Mathematical Expression
E_{total} = K.E + P.E + \text{other forms of energy} = \text{constant}
Kinetic Energy = K.E
Potential Energy = P.E
If no external force acts on the system, the total energy before and after a process remains the same
E initial = E final
Conclusion : The Law of Conservation of Energy is one of the most fundamental principles in physics.It helps scientists
and engineers understand how systems work, design efficient machines, and energy use in nature and technology. Although
energy can change forms, the total energy of an isolated system always remains constant
References
1. Halliday, D., Resnick, R., & Walker, J. (2018). Fundamentals of Physics (11th ed.). Wiley.
2. Tipler, P. A., & Mosca, G. (2007). Physics for Scientists and Engineers (6th ed.). W. H. Freeman.
3. Serway, R. A., & Jewett, J. W. (2014). Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics. Cengage Learning.
4. HyperPhysics. (2024). Conservation of Energy. Georgia State University. Retrieved from http://hyperphysics.phy-
astr.gsu.edu
5. Khan Academy. (2024). Conservation of Energy. Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics
