3. Energy and the laws of motion

In classical mechanics, energy is a conceptually and mathematically useful property, as it is a conserved quantity. Several formulations of mechanics have been developed using energy as a core concept.

The Hamiltonian

The total energy of a system is sometimes called the Hamiltonian, after William Rowan Hamilton. The classical equations of motion can be written in terms of the Hamiltonian, even for highly complex or abstract systems. These classical equations have remarkably direct analogs in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics.[15]

The Lagrangian

Another energy-related concept is called the Lagrangian, after Joseph Louis Lagrange. This is even more fundamental than the Hamiltonian, and can be used to derive the equations of motion. It was invented in the context of classical mechanics, but is generally useful in modern physics. The Lagrangian is defined as the kinetic energy minus the potential energy.

Usually, the Lagrange formalism is mathematically more convenient than the Hamiltonian for non-conservative systems (such as systems with friction).

Noether's Theorem

Noether's (first) theorem (1918) states that any differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system has a corresponding conservation law.

Noether's theorem has become a fundamental tool of modern theoretical physics and the calculus of variations. A generalization of the seminal formulations on constants of motion in Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics (1788 and 1833, respectively), it does not apply to systems that cannot be modeled with a Lagrangian; for example, dissipative systems with continuous symmetries need not have a corresponding conservation law.

4. Energy and thermodynamics

Internal energy

Internal energy is the sum of all microscopic forms of energy of a system. It is the energy needed to create the system. It is related to the potential energy, e.g., molecular structure, crystal structure, and other geometric aspects, as well as the motion of the particles, in form of kinetic energy. Thermodynamics is chiefly concerned with changes in internal energy and not its absolute value, which is impossible to determine with thermodynamics alone.[16]

The laws of thermodynamics

According to the second law of thermodynamics, work can be totally converted into heat, but not vice versa. This is a mathematical consequence of statistical mechanics. The first law of thermodynamics simply asserts that energy is conserved,[17] and that heat is included as a form of energy transfer. A commonly used corollary of the first law is that for a "system" subject only to pressure forces and heat transfer (e.g., a cylinder-full of gas), the differential change in energy of the system (with a gain in energy signified by a positive quantity) is given as the following equation: where the first term on the right is the heat transfer into the system, defined in terms of temperature T and entropy S (in which entropy increases and the change dS is positive when the system is heated), and the last term on the right hand side is identified as "work" done on the system, where pressure is P and volume V (the negative sign results since compression of the system requires work to be done on it and so the volume change, dV, is negative when work is done on the system). Although this equation is the standard textbook example of energy conservation in classical thermodynamics, it is highly specific, ignoring all chemical, electric, nuclear, and gravitational forces, effects such as advection of any form of energy other than heat, and because it contains a term that depends on temperature. The most general statement of the first law (i.e., conservation of energy) is valid even in situations in which temperature is undefinable.

Energy is sometimes expressed as the following equation:

which is unsatisfactory[11] because there cannot exist any thermodynamic state functions W or Q that are meaningful on the right hand side of this equation, except perhaps in trivial cases.