It was only towards the middle of last century that mankind in the long search after unity in nature began to realize that all the movements of the universe are the manifestations of a single agent, which we call energy. In reality all the phenomena of nature may be conceived as diverse forms of motion, and the word "energy" is the common expression applied to all the various modes of motion in the universe. It was by the study of heat, and more especially of thermodynamics, that we obtained our conceptions of the science of energetics.
It was in Munich in 1798 that the English engineer Count Rumford first observed that in the operation of boring a cannon the copper was heated to such a degree that the shavings became red-hot. This suggested his famous experiment, in which a heavy iron pestle was turned by horse power in a metal mortar filled with water. The water boiled, and when more water was added this also became heated to ebullition, and so on indefinitely. Rumford argued that the heat thus obtained in an indefinite quantity could not be a material substance; that motion was the only thing added to the water without limit, and that therefore heat must be motion.
While Rumford's experiment showed the transformation of motion into heat, the steam engine was soon afterwards to demonstrate the opposite transformation, viz. that of heat into motion.
The actual state of our knowledge with regard to the science of energy rests on two principles, that of Mayer and that of Carnot.
The first principle was defined by J. R. Mayer, a medical practitioner of Heilbronn, whose work, Bemerkungen ueber die Kräfte der unbelebten Natur, was published in 1842. "All physical phenomena," says Mayer, "whether vital or chemical, are forms of motion. All these forms of motion are susceptible of change into one another, and in all the transformations the
quantity of mechanical work represented by different modes of motion remains invariable."
The energy of a given body is the amount of transferable motion stored up in that body, and is measured by its capacity of producing mechanical work.
Ostwald thus defines energy: "Energy is work, all that can be obtained from work, and all that can be changed into work." Different forms of energy may be measured in different ways, but all forms of energy can be measured either in units of mechanical work or in units of heat, in kilogramme-metres or foot-pounds or in calories, according as the energy in question is transformed into mechanical work or into heat. The first principle of energetics, the conservation of energy, may be thus expressed: "Energy is eternal; none is ever created, and none is ever lost. The quantity of energy in the universe is invariable, and is conserved for ever in its integrity."
The unit by which we measure quantities of heat is the calory, the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogramme of water one degree Centigrade.
The practical unit of mechanical work is the kilogramme-metre, the work required to raise the weight of one kilogramme to the height of one metre. The theoretical unit of work is one erg, the work required to move a mass of one gramme through one centimetre against a force of one dyne.