For example, when there is a fire, You get heat and light, but what determines that each little 'bit' of energy is either heat or light? Why is there not more sound made instead, or other types of energy?
130148
Well, when you break it down to fundamentals there is potential energy and there is kinetic energy -- just those two.\n\nHeat is kinetic energy -- it's the more rapid movement of atoms/molecules.  Sound is a physical wave that passes through the air, again, moving molecules around.\n\nSo it's not that there are different kinds of energy, but rather we perceive them in different ways because of our sensory organs.  But it's still an artifically human distinction.
213370
Ernie... I love this question..  it rocks.\n\nThe answer, however, is going to be just a little dissappointing.\n\nAs I'm sure you know, all light is both a particle and a wave; it is a form of nearly pure energy.  As we know from theoretical physics, energy can never be created, nor can it be destroyed.  It just changes forms.  According to the third law of thermodynamics, energy always goes from higher to lower forms when left on its own, the lowest form of energy often being considered to be heat.  And that's where your wandering, amazing laserlight goes, it turns to heat.  \n\nWhy?\n\nBecause your room of mirrors is completely imperfect.  Your mirrors are dismally inefficient reflectors of light, and the room is full of air.  Household mirrors actually reflect less than 25% of the light energy that shines on them back to you.  Lab quality mirrors made for laser work are, I believe, in the high 80% to low 90% reflectivity efficiency range.  Every time your beam hits a mirror surface and bounces off, it looses more of its energy to heat..  just as it does as it passes thrugh every atom and molicule that makes up the air in the room as well.  Your laser might make it one or two 'miles' of beam length in the room before it is bouncing around.. which would make for thousands of beams.  But, since light travels at 186,000 miles per second, your two mile beam lasts 1/93,000th of a second after you turn the power off before it's gone.  So, it DOES keep going.. but not long enough for you to percieve it.\n\nSo, IF you had perfect mirrors, IN a perfect sphere (remember; you couldn't have any corners!) a COMPLETE vacium inside it with NO particles of dust of ANY kind, and a way to fire the beam into the amazing sphere without leaving any void for energy to escape...  your theory would work, if all that were PERFECT.  But; the biggest catch would be; you could never know if it were working!  Because to find out; you would have to have a void in the sphere to see or measure it...  and measuring any energy source draws energy from it.. so, there goes your light again.\n\nSo, that's why, but it's still a great question.  Theoretical Physics is full of stuff like that...  and thinking about it will turn your brain into silly putty for days.  Keep 'em coming, Ernie..  you've got a great future if you keep your mind working like that.
474797
it says that shooting a certain amount of light on metals will cause it to release electrons.Because that means that light actually can do something, it must be a particle, otherwise it would be something that can't really touch other objects and cause something to happen
467920
lights off...but candles lit.  but be careful...we don't want a fire...might ruin the moment.  Candles lit...or just a dim light because it's more flattering than a bright light.  (i need all the help i can get after having an 8 pound baby!)  you wanna be able to see something...that's why I need SOME light.\n\nhope that helps.
451540
the light energy is obvious-sun\n\nbut others like thermal -carbon compunds formed over millions of years using light, gravity etc may be even big bang energy(just a blind guess)\n\nwind energy-i guess its temperature diff created by sun\n\nnuclear energy-probably formed during formation of universe & soler system
312964
What is a bundle of light energy that acts like a particle called?  Photon\n\n How does a flourescent light work?  An electical potential creates a plasma of a gas.  These excited gases emit light.\n\nWhat do we call light that is produced from heat?  infrared\n\nWhat are some uses of ultraviolet light?  Sterilization. Inducing chemical reactions.\n\nWhat electromagnetic waves can we see?  This is known as the visible spectrum.\n\nWhat controls the amout of infrared radiation given off of an object? Temperature\n\nWhat are infrared waves? If you book says heat, it is wrong.  Infrared is no different than any other EM wave.  It is the part of the EM spectrum that can excite vibrations in molecules.  It just so happens that the black body radiation given off from the temperatures of objects seen on earth is mostly in the IR.  \n\n How can a microwave heat your food and not your plate?  Microwave oven excite rotational levels in water.  The plate does not have water and is not heated.
113132
No one knows exactly.  It's interchangeable with matter, but no one knows exactly what matter is either.  We can describe properties of matter and energy with reference to each other, but we can't really objectively understand what they are.
41815
Thermal energy is energy associated with temperature.  This corresponds to a measurement of how much the particles in a material 'wiggle'.  The more the wiggle the higher their temperature.  This wiggling causes the emmision of EM waves or light according to a blackbody curve.  Higher temps, with more wiggling, will emit more total energy and more photons at shorter wavelengths.  The hotter the object, the more infrared radiation it emits, however it will also emit more of every other wavelength too.  The peak wavelength shifts to shorter wavelengths ( higher energies) at higher temperatures.
494593
A material's emission spectrum is the amount of electromagnetic radiation of each frequency it emits when it is heated (or more generally when it is excited).\n\nWhen the electrons in the element are excited, they jump to higher energy levels. As the electrons fall back down, and leave the excited state, energy is re-emitted, the wavelength of which refers to the discrete lines of the emission spectrum. Note however that the emission extends over a range of frequencies, an effect called spectral line broadening.\n\nThe term often refers to the visible light emission spectrum, although it extends to the whole electromagnetic spectrum, from the low energy radio waves up to high energy gamma rays.\n\nThe emission spectrum can be used to determine the composition of a material, since it is different for each element of the periodic table. One example is identifying the composition of stars by analysing the received light.
523936
Fire is a process of Oxidation.  \n\nIt's temperature is equal to or greater than the Auto-Ignition Point for the fuel substance.  Each Fuel will have it's own unique Auto-Ignition Point.\n\nIt's color is determined by the elements present, and the visual spectrum of thier discharge photons...  Photons are discharge as the electrons jump from high to lower excitation levels, and each element has it's own color signature.\n\nMost fires are orange yellow and white because of the large ammount of Hydrogen in the combustion process of organic (or formerly) material.  Occasionally Red will come out thans to the carbon of the same.\n\nIf you add powered metals to the mix your flame will change color.  Copper makes a pretty green for instance...
184938
It depends on the wavelength of the light and its energy.
477426
Fire is simply a term that we use to describe a chemical reaction that results in the release of incandescent gas (usually due to the effects of the high temperature of the reaction on the reaction product (gas)).\n\nOrdinary wood fires are not hot enough to create plasma, the fourth state of matter. The sun is an incandescent ball of plasma, so it is technically not "fire" although it may appear to be so. A burning match, while hot, is not nearly hot enough to convert gas into plasma.
388056
I'll answer a few of these to get you started.\n\n1.) Heat is only one type of energy. If, for example, you just heat something up or cool it down, then there is just a change in heat. But if there is a reaction, then there is a change of energy without a change of heat.\n\n3.) Enthalpy is defined as the thermodynamic potential of a system, which means that it's a function of heat, pressure, and volume, not just heat.\n\n4.) Standard conditions: Usually Standard Temperature and Pressure, meaning 0C and 100 kPa.\n\n7.) Q = energy added by heat. W = work. Thus, the internal energy of a system is dependant on both the heat and the work done on a system. For example, you could heat a gas, or you could simply compress it (lowering volume, increasing pressure) - both of which would increase the internal energy of the system.\n\n8.) Related to 7: Changing the pressure and volume of a gas will do work upon it.\n\n9.) Work is a form of energy - it's the actual mechanical work that can be achieved when energy is expended. In an ideal system, energy is not lost, but in a real system, there are inefficiencies where energy is not completely converted to work, so while you may extract, say 100 J of energy, it might only do 90 J of work.
286304
Yeah man...light is one of the most energetic forms that we witness. Light actually has many types of energy, just like most other things. \n\n1) Photons of light (of a suitable frequency are capable of imparting enough momentum to an electron in a metal so that the electron leaves the metal's surface. This is known as the photoelectric effect and the credit for it's knowledge goes to Mr.Einstein.\n\n2) Light has heat energy, and therefore thermodynamic value. You'll see that if you stand in the sun too long, you will be hot. \n\n3) The thermodynamic energy of light causes photochemical reactions, such as the radicalisation of halogen atoms, or the redox reactions of alkyl halides. \n\nI cannot be too sure of my satisfaction quotient with this answer because your question overlays so many fundamental concepts of light. For example, you wouldn't ask a rolling ball, "Excuse me sir, but how much energy do you really have?" The ball will snicker because you have not specified WHAT KIND OF ENERGY you want from the ball. Now, if you were to ask, "Excuse me sir, what is your KINETIC energy?", the ball would happily answer that it would be half of its mass multiplied by the square of its velocity. \n\nOne of the kinds of energy does involve a mass parameter and that would be the photoelectrical energy of light. This energy functions on the sound premise that linear and angular momentum are conserved, and since light has dual (mass-wave) nature, this kind of energy does involve mass. \n\nWe know that the energy of a photon of frequency v is E=hv where h is Planck's constant. We also know that the energy of a photon in relation to its mass is E=mc^2. THus we can say:\n\nmc^2 = hv.\n\nAll right, here is a clear answer, which I just realized. \n\nOne photon of light has the above mentioned amount of energy, and therefore a ray of light will have the energy of how many ever photons are in the ray of light. \n\nSo for n photons, energy of the ray of light is nhv. \n\nNow THIS nhv can be CONVERTED into all of the forms mentioned above. Light has energy which is capable of doing different kinds of work. \n\nForgive me for the error of thinking that light has different forms of energy. It has one form of energy which can be CONVERTED into different forms of energy. Phew....\n\nI really must thank you as this was a learning process for me too.\n\nAyerhs.
188790
Fire is a chemical reaction between Oxygen+Heat+Fuel
20847
Because heat is not matter, it isn’t correct to say it rises or falls.  A better way to ask the question is: "Why do hot things (like hot air) rise above cold things (like cold air)?" \nTo answer this question, it is important to understand what heat is. \n\nHeat is energy.  When we say something is hot, we really are saying it has a lot of stored energy. \n\nWhat does this energy do? \n\nMatter is made up of incredibly small pieces called atoms and molecules.  Atoms and molecules are always moving. \n\nThe more energy these atoms and molecules have, the faster they move.  The faster they mover, the more space they take up. \n\nIf something is hot, it weighs the same as if it were cold, but it just takes up more space. \n\nThis leads us to the concept of density.  Because hat air takes up more space than cold air, hot aur has a smaller density. \n\nLess dense hot air will "float" above the more dense cold air. \n\nThe rise of heated air can be observed if it contains smoke, water moisture, or anything else that distinguishes it against the background. One can shape the rising air by placing a physical guide, a fan, etc. on its path. For example, some smokers can make the cigarette fume swirl out of their mouth by using their tong as the exhale (I am\nnot a smoker and do not advocate smoking). Another example is the complex concurrent flow patterns of hot and cold air (i.e., wind) in the atmosphere which give rise to pretty impressive patterns that at time are visible.
639147
You are quite right that what is meant by the term energy is at best often ambiguous, and saying energy can convert from one form to another is unhelpful because it introduces "flavours" of energy. This confusion has historic origins - at one time, different forms of energy were thought to be different and it was not obvious that they were interchangeable of equivalent.\n\nThe easiest way to think of it is this.\n\nThere are two ways in which a particle can be said to have energy.\n\n1. it is moving (including vibrating)\nthis accounts for many of the things you think of as energy - heat is vibrating molecules, electricity is moving charge etc, and of course a speeding bullet has "kinetic energy"\n\n2. it is in a potential\nthis means it is being pulled by one of the forces of nature (gravity, electrostatic or strong nuclear) - if it "gives in" to this force it will accelerate (ie move) and have energy of type 1, and hence this is often called potential energy\nthis accounts for things like the energy in chemical bonds, nuclear energy, the energy in springs etc\n\nNow you can see that you can convert energy associated with moving to energy in a potential. For instance, if i fire a bullet in the air, first the chemicals in the explosive react. This means the electrons rearrange to have a little less energy in the potential created by the nuclei, and this energy is release. The released energy is converted to the energy of motion of the bullet. The bullet flies into the air against the force of gravity and it gain gravitational potential energy as it rises; it also slows down so it is losing kinetic energy.\n\nOne of the triumphs of science was to show that all of these energies are the same - i.e. that none is gained or lost.