Everyone knows if you drop a can of corn on your bare foot from the kitchen counter, it can hurt. Everyone knows if that same can of corn was dropped off your roof it would hurt more. Drop it from a bridge? Yup, that equals more pain, bare-foot or not. This is a pretty simple example of turning potential energy into kinetic energy.
Everything has potential energy; air, water, cheese, Parcheesi dice. Some folks think of this potential energy as "free energy". Nothing is free, except maybe choking on your tongue while you are sitting on the porcelain throne ... even that situation takes money, so I'll stand by my words- nothing is free. It amazes me that there are people out in cyberland that try to prove to others everyday that some things can be free, such as free energy.
People try to use the concept of utilizing potential energy as a source of free energy. If I walk that can of corn to my roof or the top of a bridge, I had to exert some amount of energy to get there. That spent energy costs something- a hot dog, a slice of Spam, a few Skittles. The higher I try to get that can of corn, the more energy I'll require. The bigger the can of corn, the more potential energy, but again, the more energy I have to exert to get it higher to release that potential energy and turn it into kinetic energy.
potential energy + time = kinetic energy.
In the example above, the component of time takes the form of the can accelerating through the air as it plummets towards your foot. I'm not sure where I am going with all this, just be careful of things that sound too good to be true. If someone is claiming something amazing, you'll hear about on the news.
Monday, February 18, 2008
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