Can coal mines be tapped for rare earth elements?

Deposits of designated critical minerals needed to transition the world's energy systems away from fossil fuels may, ironically enough, be co-located with coal deposits that have been mined to produce the fossil fuel most ...

Ion irradiation offers promise for 2D material probing

Two-dimensional materials such as graphene promise to form the basis of incredibly small and fast technologies, but this requires a detailed understanding of their electronic properties. New research demonstrates that fast ...

Study shows plants restrict use of corrective 'Tipp-Ex proteins'

Plants have special corrective molecules at their disposal that can make retrospective modifications to copies of genes. However, it would appear that these "Tipp-Ex proteins" do not have permission to work in all areas of ...

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Energy

In physics, energy (from the Greek ἐνέργεια - energeia, "activity, operation", from ἐνεργός - energos, "active, working") is a scalar physical quantity that describes the amount of work that can be performed by a force, an attribute of objects and systems that is subject to a conservation law. Different forms of energy include kinetic, potential, thermal, gravitational, sound, light, elastic, and electromagnetic energy. The forms of energy are often named after a related force.

Any form of energy can be transformed into another form, but the total energy always remains the same. This principle, the conservation of energy, was first postulated in the early 19th century, and applies to any isolated system. According to Noether's theorem, the conservation of energy is a consequence of the fact that the laws of physics do not change over time.

Although the total energy of a system does not change with time, its value may depend on the frame of reference. For example, a seated passenger in a moving airplane has zero kinetic energy relative to the airplane, but non-zero kinetic energy relative to the Earth.

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