Energy balls

On this Wikipedia the language links are energy balls the top of the page across from the article title. This article is about the scalar physical quantity. For an overview of and topical guide to energy, see Outline of energy.

Human civilization requires energy to function, which it gets from energy resources such as fossil fuels, nuclear fuel, or renewable energy. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Thermal energy is energy of microscopic constituents of matter, which may include both kinetic and potential energy. The total energy of a system can be subdivided and classified into potential energy, kinetic energy, or combinations of the two in various ways. While these two categories are sufficient to describe all forms of energy, it is often convenient to refer to particular combinations of potential and kinetic energy as its own form.

Thomas Young, the first person to use the term “energy” in the modern sense. Aristotle in the 4th century BC. In contrast to the modern definition, energeia was a qualitative philosophical concept, broad enough to include ideas such as happiness and pleasure. In 1807, Thomas Young was possibly the first to use the term “energy” instead of vis viva, in its modern sense. Joule’s apparatus for measuring the mechanical equivalent of heat.