Unit II – Energy: What Actually IS It? How Do the Conceptions of Energy in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics Compare?

Energy, it is one of the most important topics in all of science, a quick search of the term in the OpenStax Biology 2e textbook will produce 1008 occurrences, and a search of the OpenStax Chemistry Atoms First 2e produces 969 occurrences! Energy is therefore a critical concept to understand. But what is energy, and how many different kinds are there?

These topics will be the focus of this unit. By the end of the unit, you will hopefully have a better appreciation of this topic across both disciplines (biology/chemistry/physics) as well as across distance scales (from the realm of atoms to the realm of planets!).