Subjective experiences and the concept of energy.

Abstract

A study of the history of the concept of in science has led to the recurring impression that something critical is missing from the explanations proffered. Although writers on this subject tend to agree on certain themes, many ofthem also suggest factors which go unmentioned in most of the other accounts. In spite of the multiplicity of possible influences thus considered, attention is usually restricted to the internal history ofscience with its narrow range oftraditional types ofdetermining elements. Without wishing to detract from the significance ofthese considerations, I suggest that yet another factor, man's subjective experience of effort, energy, or vigor, has also played a critical role in the origins and development ofthe concept ofenergy. Historians1 frequently tell ofthe arguments between the Cartesians and the Leibnizians as to whether momentum (mass X velocity) or vis viva (mass X square ofvelocity) was the quantity conserved in any dynamic situation. Newton's quantity of motion (mass X velocity) is brought into some of these accounts of the continuing debate. Huygens is sometimes credited with a significant role in the establishment of the idea that it is vis viva that is conserved. There is usually some indication of how these various notions came to be recognized as separate factors, or types of force, each with its own functions in the domain ofphysical science, and mention is often made ofYoung's suggestion in 1807 that the term energy be applied to Leibniz' vis viva (mv2).