energy and force

[devayaani]

As a concept and not involving too much of maths, can you tell me what is the difference between force and energy?
Am I right in thinking that energy in action is force?
Atomic forces (strong and weak force), gravity and the electromagnetic force are four fundamental forces. Are they energy as well?
Thanks for clarification.

devayaani 24/04/2009

[vascop]

Energy is force multiplied by distance while the force is acting, and is also called work done by the force.
Force is not = to energy and energy is not = to force.
I think you should do an elementary Physics course, judging by the number of basic questions you are putting on answer bank.

[fo3nix]

I've not noticed any more questions, but if you do really want to learn more of this physics stuff without too many equations, try an A-level physics book.

Searching for something like this on amazon will return many results; the books are usually well-written, without too much heavy maths.

The above is correct though.

Energy is something very fundamental, that all matter has. In fact, Einstein showed his famous relation between energy and mass.

For potential energy, the magnitude of force is equal to the rate of change of the potential energy.

[eltelioni]

Actually I like devayaani's questions. Explaining physics without resorting to maths can be challenging and can expand the knowledge of those answering as well as other readers and devayaani him/herself.

[Teddio]

Work done equals force multiplied by distance. To do work energy is needed, this may be heat, kinetic, gravitational potential, chemical etc. Work and energy are both measured in Joules
Work and Force are not the same thing.
Force is best defined as the rate of change of momentum.
Explaining these ideas without using mathematics is very difficult.
Your questions, Dev, are good ones!

[fo3nix]

Another idea:

You can quite easily see what a force is. You pushing a block on the floor produces a pushing force.

Now, imagine that push, from one place to another, as being made up of lots and lots of little pushes. It's just like imagining moving your arm around in a circle, as making lots of small movements, which added together make the complete circle movement.

The work done (another name for energy), is the adding up of all these little bits of pushing force, from the start place where the block is, to where you stopped pushing the block.

Because you're adding up the force along the distance you move the block, the units change. Force has units of Newtons. Distance has units of metres. Combined together, energy has units of Newton metres. This is the same as the Joule, the more commonly used singular unit of energy.

[vascop]

You also need to bear in mind that distance and force here are both considered as vectors (i.e. the directions are important as well as the magnitude). So, for example, if the force is acting all the time at right angles to the direction in which the body being acted on by the force is moving, then the work done is zero.
So, just to introduce a bit of maths:
Work done=magnitude of force x magnitude of distance x cosine of angle between the 2 vectors.