Everything we know in the world is ultimately dependent on energy.

Energy fuels our bodies, as well as our civilization.

Energy is literally everywhere and it's all around us.

Yet for the longest time, we had no idea what energy really was.

It wasn't until relatively recently that scientists had a grasp on energy as a concept.

And once they did, they unlocked

related concepts of work and power. Learn more about energy, work, and power, what they are

and how they're different from each other on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. One of the first things that you learn in physics is the nature of energy.

While the concept of energy seems obvious, for most of human history, we lacked a clear

understanding of its nature.

The concept of energy originated as a philosophical notion about what drives things to happen,

and later evolved into a precise, conserved quantity that connects every aspect of physics.

In classical antiquity, Aristotle used terms like

Energia to discuss actuality or activity rather than a measurable substance. So his notion of

energy really had more to do with metaphysics than mechanics. In classical Chinese thought,

Qi is the vital breath or material force that animates and organizes the world.

It's present in heaven, earth, and living beings. It condenses to form things and disperses to dissolve them.

This was more of an anatomical and philosophical concept than a physical one, but it was an early idea of some force responsible for physical

animation. The idea that motion, heat, and chemical energy could all be manifestations of the same

thing wasn't really something that anybody had thought of in antiquity. Early modern mechanics

replaced the ancient outlook with mathematical accounts of motion.

Galileo demonstrated that a falling body trades height for speed in a systematic manner,

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