![]() Ionization energy is the amount of energy we need to input into an atom to remove an electron from that atom. 1 electron-volt is the amount of kinetic energy gained by an electron as it passes through a voltage of 1 volt. ![]() So while voltage isn’t energy, it is closely related to energy and like watts we can create yet another common unit of energy called the electron-volt (eV). So using SI units, 1 volt is a difference of 1 joule of potential energy (J) per 1 unit of charge (C). As an equation we can think of voltage as the amount of energy possessed by charge carriers (again almost always being electrons), Voltage = energy/charge. This is why voltage is also referred to as potential difference or electrical potential. Electrical current is driven by a difference in potential energy caused by an electric field resulting from the charge difference on the two electrodes. So any kind of electrical device has a positively charged component which electrons travel towards, and a negatively charged component which they travel away from (collectively called electrodes). Since electrons are negatively charged they are naturally attracted to positively charged objects (and repelled from negatively charged objects). Voltage can be thought of as the driving force which propels electrons and creates a current in a wire. Volts (V) too aren’t a unit of energy, but they are closely related. So 1 amp of current is defined as the flow of 1 coulomb (the unit for electrical charge) of charge per 1 second. Current is defined as the amount of electrical charge (usually electrons) flowing per unit of time, current = charge/time. If we imagine electrons moving in a wire (essentially what electricity is) like water in a stream, then we have a current in that wire. Using that power equation, we can get another commonly used energy unit called the kilowatt-hour (kWh), which is defined as the amount of energy needed to provided 1000 watts of power for 1 hour.Īmperes (A), or amps for short, aren’t a unit of energy either, rather a unit of electric current. So 1 watt would be if we applied 1 joule of energy per 1 second to something. Power is the amount of energy expended per unit of time, Power = energy/time. Watts (W) aren’t actually a unit of energy, rather a unit of power. So this means 1 joule of energy is the amount of energy required to apply a 1 newton force on an object for a distance of 1 meter. In America the units of energy are foot-pounds or British thermal units (BTU). Since energy is related to work, energy’s unit is also the joule. So the SI unit for energy is the newton-meter (Nm), more commonly referred to as the joule (J). Mathematically work is defined as the product of force and distance, F x d = w, where the SI unit of distance is the meter (m) and newton for force (and ‘w’ is the usual variable for work). In SI units, the unit of force is the newton (N), and the American customary unit is the pound-force (not to be confused with the pound-mass). Now looking at the units of force, work, and energy. Most objects do not have either entirely potential or kinetic energy, and instead possess a combination of the two (which combined are that object’s total energy). Kinetic energy is energy related to an object’s motion if an object is moving in some manner then it has kinetic energy. Potential energy is related to an object's position (where it is) or in other words it has the potential to do work but it’s currently not doing so. There are many different types of energies electrical, mechanical, thermal, gravitational, chemical, etc., but we can generalize and categorize energies as either potential or kinetic energy. So something is said to possess energy if it can do work. In essence what we did was transfer some of our own energy into the object to facilitate the object’s motion. So if we imagine pushing (applying a force) an object, any object, a certain distance over say a table’s surface, then we would say we have performed work on that object. And a force is a pushing or pulling motion which causes an object to accelerate. Work, in the physics sense, is the result of a force acting over a distance. I think it would be helpful here to go over the fundamental definitions of energy and all the units you’ve listed here to better understand ionization energy.Įnergy itself, viewed from a physics perspective, is defined as the capacity to do work.
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