The law of conservation of energy started out as an empirical law - we noticed that energy in one form or another never appears or disappears, but just gets converted. This is quite hard to do, because counting up all the "lost" energy in a process can be tricky. read more
The law of conservation of energy started out as an empirical law - we noticed that energy in one form or another never appears or disappears, but just gets converted. This is quite hard to do, because counting up all the "lost" energy in a process can be tricky. In the late 19th century, the explorations of thermodynamics confirmed it. read more
Consequence of Conservation of Energy One interesting consequence of the law of conservation of energy is that it means perpetual motion machines of the first kind are not possible. In other words, a system must have an external power supply in order to continuously deliver unlimited energy to its surroundings. read more