What is energy and how is it transferred?

Radiation imageEnergy is in everything. To say that something has energy, means it has the ability to move or change form. There are many different kinds (e.g. chemical, electrical). Energy can’t be created or destroyed. If one thing gains energy, something else must lose energy. A thing that is moving fast has more energy than if it were moving slow. A thing that is hot has more energy than if it were cold. Energy can be transferred from one thing to another such as energy from the Sun making Deena warm.

In particle physics, like in the every day world, energy can be transferred from one particle to another . When the particles interact, a particle can move in a different direction or it can turned into mass (the amount of matter something is made of) to make other particles. But no matter what happens, the amount of energy in the whole system stays the same. This is called conservation of Energy.

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