Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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Energetics, Energy and Power
And the things best to know are first principles and causes.
For through them and from them all other things may
be known but not they through the things covered by
them. . . . But these things, the most universal, are perhaps
the most difficult things for men to grasp, for they are far-
thest removed from the senses.
Aristotle (384-322
B
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overwhelmingly transformations of solar radiation. The
other two prime energizers of the Earth, its internal heat
and its gravitational forces, are qualitatively indispensable
but quantitatively much less important.
Such disparate phenomena as multiarmed lightning,
long-stalked gladioli, crying babies, rotating steam
turbines, or elegantly designed topics are ultimately
traceable to identical energetic origin in the Sun's ther-
monuclear reactions. A quest for the underlying ener-
getic commonalities is only a part of the fascination of
studying energy conversions in nature and in society. A
no less exciting endeavor is to uncover, compare, and ex-
plain countless specific expressions of these commonal-
ities that shaped evolution and history, and that create
the enormous heterogeneity of the world we live in. A
lifetime's fascination with this unified heterogeneity led
me to write this topic. But before proceeding with sys-
tematic topical analyses it is essential to appreciate the
milestones in the study of energies and to understand
The Aristotelian preference for understanding what is
most universal finds the largest realm of inquiry in ener-
getics, the study of transformations that have created
(and are incessantly changing) the inanimate universe
and that have sustained nearly four billion years of life's
evolution on the Earth. Nothing needs to be excluded
from this realm: any process can be analyzed in terms of
its underlying energy conversions; any object, as well as
any bit of information, can be valued for its energy con-
tent and for its potential contribution to future energy
transformations. On the Earth these conversions are
