Quote Originally Posted by Juliebrenna View Post
I could explain with formulas but I dont think thats what your after. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transfered. This is considerably more complicated than just change of motion. On any <a href="http://eyesonff.com" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255) ! important; text-decoration: none ! important;cursor:default ! important;">energy transfer</a> there is transfer of heat for example - but its not something somebody thinks about. I am not really sure how to explain it without mathematics. Consider throwing a baseball - your merely transferring energy to the ball giving it an <a href="http:/eyesonff.com" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255) ! important; text-decoration:none ! important;cursor:default ! important;">acceleration</a> and velocity while some energy is lost in the act of throwing due to friction as it is released from the hand etc - thus creating heat loss and inefficiency. No energy transfer is 100% efficient.
Here I'll use some layterms which will infuriate you more:

In a closed system energy is neither added nor removed. So if a closed system had say, 5000 KJ of energy, you should be able to itemize 5000 KJ of energy no matter how energy is moved around.

I'm asking why if I throw a ball, I lose 50 J of energy which goes to the ball. Why doesn't the 50 J go into Neptune? Why doesn't it go to the other side of the Eagle Nebula? The short answer is because those systems aren't part of the baseball and me system. It still doesn't explain how energy goes from me to the ball .