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From: Jim Green
Reply To: phys-l@lists.nau.edu: Forum for Physics Educators
Sent: Wednesday, February 6, 2002 11:55 AM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: energy in the tank
Much of the energy released drives the PV
work of moving the pistons.
OK. How's that?
As I have predicted on occasion, when we think of "energy" as a
fluid
substance our conceptualization gets foggy. The energy of a system can
be increased or decreased by doing _work_ on the system, but it is not
"released" or "transferred". One can of course use this faulty shorthand
language in a pinch, but then one runs into the risk of faulty
understanding -- as has been amply demonstrated in this thread.
Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen