Energy Defined as The Ability to Do Work

In the world of physics energy is often defined as the ability to do work. For instance the energy of the wind that moves a windmill might create electricity or through a process of gears it might turn a pump for water. A car engine on the other hand will turn a set of gears in a transmission which then turns the tires and makes the car go. We call this energy horsepower and that's how we measure it; horsepower is the ability to do work and it is a measurement stick.

Is there an energy which cannot be defined by its ability to do work? It is hard to say because as soon as you make a statement of a type of energy and its how it does no work someone else can come up with what that energy is doing thus figure out how it can be measured. The human body burns calories and that allows it to do work.

The human brain uses that the energy and it can think, is that work? The amount of energy the human brain uses in the amount of work it's able to do varies from person to person; same with someone's physical ability.

In this case you might say that the human brain is a force multiplier, as it is able to figure out an easier way to do work, saving energy and making other energies more efficient and effective. Thus it is really worth what you put into it. So, feed your body good stuff and use your brain to the best of your ability.

If you take a strong man and give him a banana he may be able to shovel twice as much snow as a small skinny person who also eats the same banana but has a higher metabolism. The problem with defining energy as its ability to do work is that it cannot always be measured and even if we come up with a measurement the conversion rates of energy to work will vary from machine to machine or from human to human.

We have often heard in Communism that people should have equal pay for equal work. But how could we measure the work and no two humans are equal in their ability to do work. If we use methods of piecemeal work like Friedrich Winslow Taylor or JD Rockefeller this is a better measurement. But that would be capitalism not Communism.

In Communism everyone does the best they can or puts in their time and expects that to be good enough. Unfortunately that does not provide the incentive needed to be efficient. Thus communism is a poor method when applied to humans to fully utilize the bio-system, brain or take advantage of the force multiplier.

Defining energy as the ability to work is irrelevant without the efficiency quotient attached. Without trampling on the world of physics or the academia sciences we must never forget that not all things can be measured in such a simplistic way because all things are not equal; they never have been and they never will be. Everything is not as it seems.