Kinetic Energy is the result of motion of an object. It can be described as the amount of work that must be done in order for an object to maintain its velocity or continue in a constant motion. The more work it takes to keep an object moving, the less energy is used up in that object’s motion.
In Physics, kinetic energy can be measured in units of energy per second (E/cm2). In this unit, E is the quantity of energy needed to accelerate a mass, while a is the speed of sound at which that mass moves. If you try to describe the motion of one foot in a swimming pool in terms of E/cm2, you will get a very poor idea of what kind of motion that foot has – it will be nothing like a horse’s or a human’s motion. So instead, you should measure it in energy per gram.
This unit of mechanical energy per gram describes exactly the amount of energy that needs to be used to accelerate a mass to the speed of light, or to accelerate a large object to the speed of sound. It also describes the energy required to keep the object from decelerating and keeping it going for long enough to reach its destination. In a sense, this unit is similar to the momentum of an object – the more momentum an object has, the more work it has to do.
The first component of this unit of mechanical energy per gram is the amount of work required to make a mass move. In Physics, this element of work is measured in the amount of force that needs to be applied to a body in order for it to move. And this element of force is measured in the magnitude of the force needed to make an object move.
This second component of force is the amount of work that can be performed without applying any force. There are many ways in which kinetic energy can be produced by moving a body – it can be the result of momentum, elastic force, the energy gained during deceleration, or the amount of elastic energy lost when decelerating, for example, or the amount of heat energy lost in the process of deceleration and during a spinning motion.
Kinematic theory has been useful in many other ways. It has been used to determine the energy requirements needed to accelerate a ball, or a cylinder, so that it can be pushed forward at high velocities – it can be used to determine the strength and weight of an object that is falling and its ability to balance, and it can be used to calculate how much power a vehicle engine needs to operate – how much energy it needs to move the vehicle.
Kinematic theory has also been used in predicting the amount of energy that will be needed to stop a vehicle moving at different speeds. The equation used in this application is called kinetic energy equals force x distance. So the more force that is needed to accelerate a vehicle the more energy it needs to stop, so that more force is needed to prevent it from stopping at all.
The same applies to the equation used to determine how much energy is lost as the speed increases. When the kinetic energy is compared to the energy it would require to stop the vehicle moving, the amount of energy that is lost as a result of friction, gravity, and air resistance is called the kinetic energy penalty.
Kinematics has also been used to predict the amount of energy that is needed to propel a vehicle. Many calculations are based on the equations that describe how much force must be exerted to get the vehicle moving with the least possible friction and how much energy is lost as the vehicle slows down as it slows down. This has helped scientists to determine the energy requirements for using electric motors, the amount of power that is required to drive a car, and the energy needed to make a rocket fly.
This has been a very important part of human history. Without this unit of mechanical energy, we could not have made and built all the things that we do today.
