Dr. Aniruddha Chakraborty

Course Details:                                                                              

Energy is at the heart of science and yet no course exists specifically to explain it, and in simple terms. Using only a very minimum amount of mathematics, this course will explain the modern concept of energy, in all its known forms: Hamilton's mechanics and how it shaped twentieth-century physics, and the meaning of kinetic energy, potential energy, temperature, action, and entropy. Many fascinating questions will be covered in this course, including:

•  Why just kinetic and potential energies - is one more fundamental than the other?
•  What are heat, temperature and action? What is the Hamiltonian?
• What have engines to do with physics?
• Why S=k ln W works?

Module 1: Concept of Energy

Naive conceptions of energy, energy as the cause of things, definitions of energy, energy and work, conservation of energy.

Module 2: Internal Energy

Kinetic Energy (K.E.), Potential Energy (P.E.), Internal Energy: K.E. and P.E. mingled, different Forms of Energy.

Module 3: Work & Energy

Energy as substance - can it be stored? Work and Kinetic Energy.

Further Reading:

• Some alternative views of energy, D. M. Watts, Phys. Edu., 18, 213 (1983).

• Energy and its carriers: A critical analysis, J. M. Warren, Phys. Edu., 18, 209 (1983).

• Pseudowork and real work, B. A. Sherwood, Am. J.  Phys., 51, 597 (1983).

• Energy is not the ability to do work, R. L. Lehrman, Phys. Teach., 11 , 15 (1973).

• Transferring not transforming energy, M. Ellse, Sch. Sci. Rev., 69, 427 (1988).

• Internal work: A misinterpretation, W. H. Bernard, Am. J. Phys., 52, 253 (1984).

• Should energy be illustrated as something quasi-material? R. Duit, Int. J. Sci. Edu., 9, 139 (1987).