Energy Talk!

gibsongtar101 asked:


conservation of energy states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. Isn’t our body burning(destroying) energy when we work out in the gym. You’re burning carbohydrates and that’s energy…

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4 Responses to “Does the law of conservation of energy apply to us humans?”

1. Kaynard Says:
   November 17th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

   Nah, it turns into kinetic energy, doesn’t it?

2. El fagguito Says:
   November 17th, 2007 at 10:52 pm

   It is transformed into work. It eventually disperses as heat.

3. bluten80 Says:
   November 18th, 2007 at 1:35 am

   Yes, humans follow the law of conservation of energy, as do all living things.
   When you burn carbohydrates, what your body is doing is using enzymes to break down that carb into smaller parts. In doing this, the energy stored in the bonds is released.
   The energy is released slowly over several steps, and used to make ATP, a special type of chemical energy that fuels cellular processes. Then your cells can help you do things–for example, muscle cells will use ATP to help your muscles move while you are working out.
   So you are not destroying the energy when you burn carbs at the gym. You are just converting the energy in the bonds of the carb into a different kind of energy that your cells can use so that you can do things.

4. Mikey D Says:
   November 19th, 2007 at 2:10 am

   i believe how it works is this. you do burn calories obviously because humans can lose and/or gain weight. i think how we lose these calories is because we are taking the weights from a potential energy, supplying a force and thus putting work into the system. therefore we are changing the energy level in the weights by changing it’s potential and kinetic energies. in so doing we are burning calories because we are doing work. our body gives off heat which increases the entropy of the universe but i believe the only energy change is due to us supplying a force over a distanc or work to the weights to change their energy states.

   as to the carbohydrates, i believe what happens is those carbs replenish your muscles as they do the required work to change the energy levels of the weights as you work out. at which point you burn those carbs and then you run out of extra carbs to use and so i think you’re just losing energy at that point and putting that into the weights. that’s as good an answer as i can come up with