Spencer Heath Archives

Item 36

Complete item, sketches and tables to be photocopied. See also four pages of pencil notes on this item.

No date

 

 

 

WHAT IS ENERGY?

     Every action or event, as an actuality, is composed of just three elements:

1. There is an element of Mass, Weight, Force, Pressure or Attraction.

2. There is an element of Motion, Space or Distance through which the Mass etc. moves.

3. There is an element of Duration or Time, Period continuity between discontinuities or between rhythmic repetitions of events. This is measur­able by comparison with the rhythm of the earth’s periodicity of position, and fractions thereof such as hours, minutes, seconds.

     The composition of any Action or Event is ascertained by measuring the respective quantities of Mass, Motion and Time of which it is composed. To do this it has been neces­sary to adopt definite standard quantities of Mass, Motion and Time as units of measure for these respective elements.

     When any action or event has been decomposed into the magnitudes of its three elements in terms of their standard units such decomposition is an analysis. When they are recom­bined, either in the proportions ascertained or in any propor­tion designed, that is a synthesis — the creation of an action or event.

 

     When the quantities of Mass, Motion and Time in an event are stated, such statement is an analysis of an action or event.

 

     When these three quantities are multiplied together the product is the quantity of action.

     When the first two of these quantities of Mass and of Motion are multiplied together the product is the quantity of energy manifested in the action or event.

     When all three are multiplied together the resulting product is the quantity of action that constitutes the action or event. Hence action is the technical term for any product of energy multiplied by time.

 

     Energy, therefore, is an abstract conception of an action divided by its element of time; or it is the product of the Mass and the Motion elements in an action or event without the inclusion of time as one of its elements.

     Energy — Mass times Motion apart from Time — can be conceived in the mind but it cannot be experienced. The same is true of both its elements. Either alone can be imagined but neither alone can be experienced. Nor can the two combined, for there is no experience that does not include Time. Every manifestation of nature is a three-fold unity of Mass, Motion and Time.

     The most widely employed units for the measurement of Mass, Motion and Time are called “international.”

     The unit of Mass is the gram — equal to a quantity of pure water having a cubic centimeter volume, a temperature of 60 degrees F. and under the pressure of one atmosphere at sea level. This quantity of water has always the same Mass, but it does not have always the same weight. Its weight depends on its position with respect to the earth. But it does have one property that is called absolute because that property does not depend on anything outside of the gram Mass itself. That absolute property is its resistance to motion or change of motion, called its “inertia.” So not its weight but its inertia is taken as the basis for the measurement of Mass.

     When a gram mass (of any material) is at rest relative to its surroundings it requires a definite amount of uniform force to bring it up to any definite velocity. The uniform force required to raise it in one second from zero velocity to a velocity of one centimeter per second is called a dyne. This is ascertained by experiment. To have a final velocity of one centimeter per second, the gram must have an average velocity (starting at zero) of one-half centimeter per second. Now, since this must be accomplished during one second, the distance moved must have been one half centimeter. The amount of energy, then, was one dyne times one-half centimeter or a half-centimeter-dyne. Now the final velocity being a whole centimeter per second, the gram at that velocity will have the energy of one dyne times a whole centimeter. Its final energy is thus twice its average energy while being accelerated.

 

     The velocity at the end of one second is one centi­meter per second, and during that second the dyne has caused the gram to move one half a centimeter from the point of starting. During the next second the gram will not only move a whole centimeter due to its velocity but will also move another half centimeter, the same as during the first second, under the continuing influence of the dyne. So, at the end of two seconds the gram will have acted through two half centimeters under the continuing influence of the dyne and through one whole centimeter due to the velocity with which it entered the second second. This makes a total motion of two centimeters during the two seconds. The force being one dyne, the energy is two dyne seconds. So a gram of mass moving at the rate of two centimeters has an energy of two ergs — the energy being the force times the distance through which it acts. So a gram moving at the velocity of one centimeter per second must possess two ergs of energy. In whatever manner it acquired its energy, it is the same amount of energy as though it had been acted on by a dyne force through two seconds.

 

     When any mass is moving at any known velocity the amount of energy it has is easily found by multiplying the mass in grams (which is the same as the number of seconds it has been moving) by the square of the velocity; for it so happens that the square of the number of seconds is always just twice the total distance moved. So the familiar formula is 

 

Energy  =  MV² Ergs

       2

 

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Commentary by Alvin Lowi, Jr.

III  VII  B 6.7,  D

 

SUBJECT:  What is Energy?  The composition of an actual event in terms of three elements — mass, motion, and time. Analysis as the mental process of decomposing events into its three elements. Synthesis as the recombination, or combining of elements, into a unity capable of or designed to be a new event. The rules of combination — analysis. Energy as a partial combination — either abstracted from an event (analysis) or formed from two elements. Action as a complete combination. Nature as the threefold unity. “International” units and how specified — Mass, weight, Force, inertia, length, velocity, time, etc. Rules of motion — uniform acceleration.

 

REMARKS:  Epistemologically sound — mechanically very limited, limitations not spelled out.