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Re: Energy

At 11:16 PM 9/17/01 -0700, Bernard Cleyet wrote:
At a microscopic level a hot object does more work ....

Ho ho ho. I did not foresee that anyone would take the microscopic
viewpoint here. At first glance that means I should revise what I said
about work versus heat, but really it would be better to prune off that
whole branch of the argument. It's irrelevant.

The relevant point is that a positive change in the energy level of system
"X" is always accompanied by a negative change in the energy level of some
adjacent system "Y". This is what guarantees that it is safe to speak of
every such energy change as an energy transfer. This is true
macroscopically and microscopically, thermally and nonthermally.

"..... energy cannot exist in isolation.", and ".... energy has a reality
quite independent of its embodiment."

As R2D2 would say, "This doesn't compute"

Why not? I assume you'll allow me to talk about the properties of a gallon
of water without being specific about what container it's in. Why, then,
can I not talk about the properties of energy, notably its conservation,
without being specific about what embodiment it's in?

BTW, the does-not-compute line belongs to the Lost In Space robot, not R2D2:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/8649/itdoesnt.wav