Dr. Martin Picard

Potential energy.

So energy kind of manifests in all of these different ways.

So in a nutshell, I think the best definition I've heard from my wife, Narosha, who's a biophysicist, energy is the potential for change.

And that applies to any kind of form, any form of energy you can think about.

It's the potential for change, for changing something in the system.

And that's, I think, an accurate description of thermal energy.

If something is frozen solid, there's no potential for moving something.

We need to be at 37 Celsius, the human body.

It gives us the potential to move and muscles to contract and our biology to progress.

to function.

So this is just one example where there's like a sweet spot of energy or there needs to be some thermal energy.

You need to be a little warm to be alive.

So the potential for change, and then it manifests in all these beautiful ways.

And it's something that flows.

A key property of energy is something that has the ability to flow and to transform.

You can never create nor destroy energy, right?

That's like a fundamental law of thermodynamics, but energy always transforms.

So you can transform heat into motion, right?

And like the steam engine, for example, through pressure, another form of energy.

Or you can transform electricity into, you know, a picture on your screen.