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ENERGY
PHYSICS IN ACTION

Energy

Forces and Motion

The Nature of Matter

Planets, Stars, and Galaxies

Processes That Shape the Earth

 ENERGY

Andrew Dean Foland, Ph.D.

Series Editor
David G. Haase
For Jade Mei

Energy
Copyright © 2007 by Infobase Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the
publisher. For information contact:

Chelsea House
An imprint of Infobase Publishing
132 West 31st Street
New York NY 10001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Foland, Andrew Dean.
Energy / Andrew Dean Foland, Ph.D.
p. cm. — (Physics in action)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7910-8930-9 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-7910-8930-4 (hardcover)
1. Force and energy. I. Title. II. Series.
QC73.F65 2007
531'.6—dc22 2007009055

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 C ONTENTS

1 What Is Energy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2 Kinetic Energy of a Skater: 5,000 Joules . . . 18
3 Potential Energy of Liberty’s Torch:
3.4 Million Joules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4 Heat Power of the Sun in 1 m 2 :
1,500 Watts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5 Electrical Energy of an AA Battery:
8 Watt-Hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6 Chemical Energy of 1 Kilogram of Sugar:
17 Million Joules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
7 Relativistic Energy of 1 Kilogram of
Helium Fusion: 270 Trillion Joules . . . . . . . 87
8 Household Energy Use: 43 Kilowatt-Hours . . 98
9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
 C HAPTER 1
What Is Energy?

E V ERYONE H AS HEA R D OF ENERGY. W E K NOW IT IS R EL AT ED

to the cars we drive, the lights we turn on at night, or the food
we cook for dinner. Most of us feel that it is somehow related to
power. We also use the word energy to describe a person (“very
energetic”) or vague feelings (for instance, someone might say, “I
sense an energy here”).
In everyday life, it is perfectly acceptable to use the word en-
ergy in these various ways. In physics, though, energy is a precisely
defined idea. Unfortunately, it is easy to confuse the everyday
meanings of energy with its technical definition. It is also un-
fortunate that many explanations of energy in physics are either
confusing or incorrect.
So, it will be helpful, first, to make a list of things that are not
energy. Most of these things have something to do with energy,
but they are not energy. The distinction will make it much easier
to understand what energy is.

• Energy is not electricity.

• Energy is not a force.
• Energy is not sunlight.

7
8 ENERGY

• Energy is not oil.

• Energy is not a f luid.
• Energy is not power.
• Energy is not radiation.
• Energy is not infrared light.

In short, energy is not any material object at all. Material ob-

jects can have or carry energy but themselves are not energy. In
this way, energy is sort of like the idea of color: objects have colors,
but color is not an object. If you could imagine a slightly kooky
bumper- car amusement park ride where the cars could exchange
their colors whenever they collided, you would have a good start
toward understanding energy. A car might, for instance, carry
“redness” from one place to another, much like light carries energy
from one place to another.
Another common definition of energy is “the capacity to do
work,” where “work” is defined within physics. This definition is
largely correct; the student who thinks of energy this way will
have a fair grasp of the concept. But in some contexts, especially
in biology, it is a little bit incomplete, and we will point this out.
Regardless of what energy is, we will learn in this book how to
calculate the amount of energy there is in many situations—and
once you have calculated the amount of energy there is in a situa-
tion, then the total amount of energy calculated must always stay
the same, even if the situation changes. That is, the situation is
only allowed to change to another situation with the same amount
of calculated energy. This is what we mean when we say, “Energy
is always conserved.” According to the law of conservation, energy
cannot be created or destroyed— the calculated amount cannot go
up or down.
Energy comes in many forms, and at bottom, all forms of en-
ergy share the same principles. Nonetheless, the formula used to
calculate the amount of energy differs from one situation to an-
other. In the course of this book, we will see many of these forms:
from the fundamental definition of energy to mechanical energy,
potential energy, heat energy, electrical energy, chemical energy,
and nuclear energy.
 What Is Energy? 9

Wolfgang Pauli and Conservation of Energy

P hysicists believe so strongly in the conservation of energy that one

physicist once used it to predict the existence of a brand new par-
ticle. In 1930, Wolfgang Pauli was considering the recently discovered
radioactive decay of elements that emitted gamma rays. Measurements
had revealed that when these elements underwent transformations, the
total energy afterwards was less than it had been before the transforma-
tion. This was quite puzzling to physicists of the time, as it violated the
law of conservation of energy. Professor Pauli wrote the following letter
on December 4 of that year:

Dear Radioactive Ladies and Gentlemen,

As the bearer of these lines, to whom I graciously ask you to
listen, will explain to you in more detail, how because of the “wrong”
statistics of the N and Li 6 nuclei and the continuous beta spectrum, I
have hit upon a desperate remedy to save the “exchange theorem”
of statistics and the law of conservation of energy. Namely, the
possibility that there could exist in the nuclei electrically neutral
particles, that I wish to call neutrinos. . . .
I agree that my remedy could seem incredible because one should
have seen these neutrinos much earlier if they really exist. But only
the ones who dare can win. . . .

His suggestion of neutrinos meant the particles were invisible and

non- interacting— unlike any other particle known before or since. Pauli’s
“desperate remedy,” however, quickly became accepted as the theoreti-
cal solution to the problem. In 1956, these particles were directly de-
tected for the first time, confirming the hypothesis.

Let us now come back to the question of “what energy is.”

It would be fairest to say, “Energy is a useful number that you
can calculate in any physics situation, and the total number will
never change thereafter.” This is a little unsatisfying if you were
10 ENERGY

hoping for a statement like “energy is a f luid” or “energy is the mo-

tion of little tiny particles.” Unfortunately, energy is an abstract
quantity, and a slightly absurd and complicated one at that. As
the Swiss theorist Wolfgang Pauli is rumored to have said, “Just
shut up and calculate!” It is useful to recall the words of the great
Richard Feynman, in his book QED: The Strange Theory of Light
and Matter:

It is not a question of whether a theory is philosophically de-

lightful, or easy to understand, or perfectly reasonable from
the point of view of common sense. The theory . . . describes
Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense.
And it agrees fully with experiment.

All that said, though, if you feel cheated in learning what en-
ergy is, you can fall back on our earlier statement, “Energy is the
capacity to do work.”
You might wonder, then, “Why is it that the number never
changes thereafter? ” This has a somewhat cleaner answer. The
physicist Emmy Noether proved that if the laws of physics are the
same today as they were yesterday, then the energy must be con-
served. So, the energy number never changes from one situation
to another because the laws of physics do not change from day to
day. This fact is by no means obvious— figuring it out is why Ms.
Noether became famous.

MEASURING ENERGY
You may understand in general that a speeding truck has more en-
ergy than a butterf ly does, or that a gallon of gasoline can provide
more energy to a car than a gallon of water would. But how are
these energies measured? We seldom have an “energy meter” that
reads out the answer. Usually the energy of an object is calculated
from quantities such as the object’s speed, mass, or position.
Just as length is measured in feet or meters, and time is mea-
sured in seconds, energy must also be measured in some system of
 What Is Energy? 11

Emmy Noether

F or most of the nineteenth century and part of the twentieth century,

physicists could not understand why energy was conserved. It was
regarded as an important experimental fact without theoretical under-
standing. The reason for the conservation of energy was discovered in
1918 by Emmy Noether (1882–1935). In fact, she discovered the basis
for all known conservation laws (including, for instance, conservation
of momentum). Her most famous physics theorem (known as Noether’s
theorem) is considered one of the most important foundations for ad-
vanced physics today. This theorem says that every conservation law is
the consequence of symmetry in the laws of physics.
For instance, the laws of physics have time symmetry— they are the
same every day. This time symmetry leads to conservation of energy.
They also have space symmetry— they are the same here as they are in
China or on Mars. This space symmetry leads to conservation of mo-
mentum. The laws of physics are also the same whether you stand nor-
mally or on your head— they have rotation symmetry. This leads to a
conservation law called conservation of angular momentum.
It wasn’t easy for Noether to pursue her talents. Despite discover-
ing a physics law of great depth and power (it is less famous than, but
similar in importance to, the theory of relativity), women in her time
were not allowed to be professors in universities in Germany. Her talents
were so great, however, and her supporters (including Albert Einstein)
so vocal, that she overcame this prejudice and was eventually allowed
both to earn a Ph.D. and to accept a teaching position at the University
of Erlangen.

units. There are four common units in use for measuring energy—
we will encounter three of them in this book, and the fourth
(BTU) is commonly used in everyday life. The official energy unit
of the SI system (the International System of Units, now used for
12 ENERGY

most scientific purposes) is the joule (abbreviated “J”). One joule

is twice as much as the mechanical energy (described in the next
chapter) carried by a one- kilogram object moving at one meter
per second. One joule is about the amount of energy you exert in
lifting a cup of water from the table to your mouth.
Another unit of energy, which we will use very little in the
book, is the calorie. The definition of a calorie is the amount of
energy that will raise the temperature of one gram of water by one
degree Celsius. One calorie is approximately 4.2 joules. A more
commonly used term is the Calorie (note the capital “C”). One
Calorie is 1,000 calories, and thus it is also known as the kilocalo-
rie. A Diet Coke, with only one Calorie, actually carries 4,200
joules of energy (Figure 1.1).
In describing the motion of atoms and molecules, we use a very
small unit of energy— the electron volt (eV). Although electricity
is itself not energy, we will see that electrical fields can increase or
decrease the energy of charged particles such as electrons. Batter-
ies are rated in volts—for instance, a 9-volt battery—that tell how
much work the battery will do on an electron. If one electron trav-
els from the negative terminal to the positive terminal of a 9-volt
battery, it ends up carrying off 9 electron volts of energy from the
battery. If two electrons travel, their total energy is 18 electron
volts. Of course, one electron is very small, so one electron volt is
very little energy: 1.6 × 10 −19 J.
Finally, the English system of units uses the BTU (British
thermal unit). We will have little use for this unit in the book,
but it is common enough in daily life that it deserves some expla-
nation. One BTU is equal to 1,055 joules. So, a 5,000-BTU/hour
air conditioner removes 5,275,000 joules of energy from a room
in one hour. Such an air conditioner is generally sufficient for a
small room, while a 500,000-BTU/hour A/C unit might cool an
entire building. (Note that everyone says “BTU” for measuring air
conditioner output, but BTU per hour is the correct unit.)
When should you use each of these units? Of course, in prin-
ciple, it doesn’t matter. The length of the movie The Fellowship
of the Ring is the same whether you call it 3 hours, 180 minutes,
 What Is Energy? 13

Figure 1.1 Measured energy in everyday products. The latest weapon in the battle
against weight gain is a 100- Calorie-sized serving of popular drinks, such as this can
of Coca- Cola. In food labeling, the term “calorie” usually refers to the kilocalorie.

or 10,800 seconds. We know, however, that sometimes one set

of units are more convenient than another. A set of blueprints
would tell you the distance across a living room in feet, but a
map would tell you the distance from Los Angeles to New York
in miles.
In the same way, joules, Calories, or electron volts could all
be used to express the energy carried by something. We’ll see,
however, that when discussing mechanical energies of “people-
sized” things, it is most convenient to use joules. When discuss-
ing chemical substances or heat, Calories are common. And when
discussing the energy of just a few atoms or electrons, we will use
electron volts.
14 ENERGY

Units and Conversions

Y ou are probably familiar with the SI system of units. In this system,

lengths are measured in meters, masses in kilograms, and time in
seconds. Together with scientific notation, this set of units allows sci-
entists to communicate unambiguously to one another about the sizes
of things. Of course, you know it does not matter whether you measure
something in feet or meters— it’s the same length. That is always true
with units.
If you always carefully write out the units when you are doing a cal-
culation, then it will be much easier to do it correctly. It will take a little
more time to do it this way, but it will save you a lot of trouble (and more
time) down the road.
There are also “compound” units, such as the joule or watt. However,
these can be written as follows:

1 J = 1 kg m2 /s 2
1 W = 1 J/s = 1 kg m2 /s3

When doing a problem, remember that you can always “multiply by

one.” So, to convert centimeters into meters:

This method will keep you from having to remember whether to di-
vide by 100 or to multiply when converting numbers.
You will find it best if, when you receive a problem, you first convert it
into the SI system. Then you can go ahead and use the various formulas
as they were meant to be used. Otherwise, you might forget to convert
one of them later.
 What Is Energy? 15

MEASURING POWER
Power and energy are related, but how? Power is defined as the
amount of energy absorbed, transformed, or transmitted per second.
The air conditioning BTU/hour is a unit of power. The basic SI unit
for power is joules per second; this is also known as the watt (abbre-
viated W). The amount of energy used by a light bulb, for instance,
is measured in watts, because it is always using energy, a certain
amount every second. A 60-watt light bulb transforms 60 joules of
energy every second from being carried by electric fields (in the elec-
trical wires of your house) to being carried by light (which you see)
and heat. (The watt does not measure the amount of light the light
bulb puts out. In general, the more power the bulb uses, the more
light it emits, but it is possible for two light bulbs with the same
power consumption to be of different brightness, or two light bulbs
of the same brightness to have different power consumption.)
In addition to the watt, a common unit of power consumption
is horsepower: 1 HP is 746 J/s, or 746 W. The horsepower unit was
invented so that early steam engine builders could compare their
engines to the horse- drawn competition.
A couple of useful points to remember about power. First, if
the energy is not changing form (or at least moving from one ob-
ject to another), then the power is zero. For instance, if an object
has 70 J of energy when it travels for 10 seconds, the power during
the flight is not 70 J ÷ 10 sec = 7 W. There may be a burst of power
(to project the object) at the beginning, or at the end (when the
energy comes to a stop and transforms into something else, such
as heat), but in between there is no power because no energy is
being transformed or transferred.
Second, very powerful processes may involve very little en-
ergy, or very energetic processes may involve very little power. It
depends on the amount of time the process takes. For instance,
every so often a rock falls into the Grand Canyon; as we will see
later, this transforms energy from potential to kinetic to heat. It
happens rarely enough that the power— energy ÷ time— is very
low. But over geologic time (millions of years), the amount of total
16 ENERGY

energy transformed in this way is very large. Similarly, some very

powerful lasers can temporarily achieve gigantic power— even up
to one billion watts! But they are active only for a trillionth of a
second. So, the total energy is only a few thousandths of a joule—
roughly the amount of energy it takes you to lift your finger one
centimeter off the table.

HOW A PHYSICIST THINKS

ABOUT ENERGY
One of the central facts about the world is that it is not possible to
create or destroy energy at will. This underlies many of the great de-
bates of our day. It makes the nation that possesses oil reserves both
rich and influential. It makes the creator of waste heat potentially
dangerous. It makes the nuclear- armed nation vastly more power-
ful than those who rely on more conventional forms of energy.
At the same time, energy underlies many of the great advances
of our day. The storage of energy in batteries makes possible a
lifestyle at once mobile and electronic. The simple expedient of
finding a high- energy liquid (gasoline) lets us move from place to
place quickly, efficiently and in comfort. This book was written
on a laptop computer dependent on the energy stored in light, ef-
ficient batteries.
It is amusing to consider for a moment how the world might be
if this were not the case. How would the world change if energy
could be created or destroyed at will? The world would be a much
more fantastical place, but it would also be much more unpredict-
able and chaotic. In short, it might become incomprehensible.
As we will see in this book, energy is a great organizing con-
cept for understanding how the world works. We will see what
energy is, the forms it takes, and how to recognize and measure it.
We will see that it is simultaneously abstract and concrete. And
by the time we are done, we should have a good understanding of
just how much of it there is.
Each chapter of this book is organized by a single quantity
that will help the reader understand the scale of energy in some
 What Is Energy? 17

common, everyday situations. After having read the book, read-

ers hopefully will be able to use these quantities consistently. It
is also hoped that the reader, having completed the book, will
understand the words of Thomas Huxley that “Science is simply
common sense at its best; that is, rigidly accurate in observation,
and merciless to fallacy in logic.” Perhaps you’ll see science as
something you can use as a tool every day, as an extension of com-
mon sense. Science is not a mystical, separate kind of knowledge
attained by scientists, but simply knowledge.
C HAPTER 2
Kinetic Energy of a Skater:
5,000 Joules

L ET ’ S BEGIN BY TACKLING THE EASIEST SIT UAT ION IN W HICH

to calculate the quantity of energy present. This kind of en-
ergy is called kinetic energy. An object that is in motion is car-
rying energy simply due to its motion. This means that a moving
object can be brought to rest, and this energy of motion could
be converted to another form of energy. As we will see in later
chapters, it often is converted into forms such as potential energy,
heat, or electrical energy.
Most things in motion in everyday life, as you know, tend to
slow down. This is due to friction (or one of its forms, such as air
resistance). As an object slows down, its kinetic energy must de-
crease. This energy must go somewhere— and as we will see, it is
transformed into heat.
This indicates that we should start off by considering a
friction- free environment in order to understand the energy of
motion by itself. For instance, on a newly Zamboni- ed surface of
ice in a rink, the friction on a skater is very low. In this case, the

18
 Kinetic Energy of a Skater: 5,000 Joules 19

rule of conservation of energy implies that the kinetic energy of

the skater will not really change from one moment to the next.
What do we think might possibly relate to the energy of a
skater’s motion? Let us just try to think about some possible an-
swers first, before getting to the right answers. You would prob-
ably guess that the color of the skater’s outfit doesn’t change the
energy, but the speed of the skater probably does. From your own
experience, you know that your muscles work harder to throw a
baseball than a ping- pong ball, so you might expect that size or
mass of the moving object are related to its energy. You might
think the shape of the skater’s skates mattered, or the shape of
their hat, or whether the skater is skating sideways or forwards.
Or you might think that if the skater wears very heavy skates or
very light ones, it changes the energy.
But it turns out that to calculate the energy carried by a moving
object, we need to know only two things: the total mass of the object
and the speed of the object. This probably makes sense to you— the
bigger and faster the object, the more energy of motion it has.
Suppose the mass of the object is m and the speed of the ob-
ject is v (for velocity); then the kinetic energy (KE) is:

For the moment, you can think of this as simply a fact about
our universe, although in the next chapter we will see a way to
figure this out for yourself.
A very fast bike rider, such as Lance Armstrong in the Tour de
France, might reach speeds of 15 m/s (about 35 miles per hour).
If his mass is 45 kg, we can calculate the energy of motion as the
biker is riding:

So, let us examine the units of kinetic energy. Velocity is mea-

sured in meters per second, and mass is measured in kilograms. The
units of kinetic energy, then, are kilograms × meters2 /seconds2. In
20 ENERGY

fact, this is the unit of any kind of energy. Because this unit comes
up so often, it has its own name, the joule. Joules are the same
thing as kg m 2 /s 2 . A joule is an example of a compound unit, be-
cause it is derived from a combination of other units.
Compound units are not found in the simplest things we mea-
sure, such as time (measured just in seconds), length (meters), or
mass (kilograms). You may already know another compound unit,
used in force, which is called the newton. Force is the mass multi-
plied by acceleration (F = ma). The newton is kg m/s 2 . Velocity is
also a compound unit, since it involves both meters and seconds.
In calculating physical properties it is often best to convert
compound units to their simplest versions. For example, if you
want to use the joule in a problem, be sure to convert all the
units to kilograms, meters, and seconds. One kilogram centime-
ter2 /hour2 is not a joule.
It is worth noticing that a one kilogram mass moving at one
meter per one second does not have the energy of one joule. It has
units of joules, but to calculate the energy, we must multiply

If you multiply this out, with one kilogram and one meter per
second, you find

The somewhat startling thing about kinetic energy is that it

depends on the square of the velocity. So, your car, when it travels
at 60 miles per hour (27 m/s) has four times as much kinetic en-
ergy as when it travels at 30 miles per hour (14 m/s). The skater
has four times as much energy of motion when traveling at top
speed (15 m/s) as when skating at half- speed (7.5 m/s).
Finally, you’ve probably heard a great deal about vectors.
That is, forces, accelerations, and velocities have not only a size
(magnitude) but also a direction. Energy of any sort, including
 Kinetic Energy of a Skater: 5,000 Joules 21

Signifying Changes with Delta

I t is a very common occurrence in physics problems that we have a

quantity x, and we would like to examine changes in the quantity x.
We need a consistent way to indicate that we are examining the change
in a quantity.
The change in the quantity is the difference in the quantity; unless
noted otherwise, it is the final value minus the initial quantity. For in-
stance, the change in x is x final − xinitial . In order to consistently signify this
meaning, we use the Greek letter for “d” (“difference”). This is the letter
Δ (delta). Whenever you see the letter Δ in front of a variable, you know
it means the final minus initial values:

kinetic energy, does not have a direction. It is just a single number

(magnitude) that you calculate. In physics, such quantities are
sometimes called scalars. For instance, temperature is just tem-
perature, just a number. You might calculate the number as Fahr-
enheit or Celsius, but when you’re done, it’s a number, saying
only how warm or cold it is. On the other hand, a force not only
has a magnitude (saying how strong it is) but also a direction. For
instance, the gravitational force at the surface of the Earth always
points downward.

WORK
Energy also measures work. Although you probably think of work
as anything you have to do that you don’t like, in physics there is
a precise definition of work. Work is about exerting a force that
makes an object move a distance. The work you do is the force
22 ENERGY

Figure 2.1 (a) Force is in the same direction as displacement, the most common
situation. The force vector and displacement vector have an angle of zero degrees.
(b) Force is perpendicular to the motion. This is the case for twirling a weight on a
rope. The angle between the force and the displacement is zero.

times the distance (also known as the displacement) over which

you exert the force, times the cosine of the angle between the
force and the displacement (Figure 2.1).
This is written mathematically as a “dot product” between the
force vector and the distance vector.

This says that if F៬ is parallel to d៬ then simply W = F៬ • d៬ =

兩F兩兩d兩cos(0°) = 兩F兩兩d兩. But if F៬ is perpendicular to d៬, then W = F៬ •
d៬ = 兩F兩兩d兩cos(90°) = 0. If you exert a force along the direction of
motion, you do the most work. Pushing an object perpendicular to
the object’s motion, however, does no work at all.
This allows us an alternative definition of the joule. A joule
is 1 newton- meter: one newton of force exerted over one meter
of displacement. The newton has units of kg m/s 2 . Multiplying
by meters, the units of newton- meters are kg m 2 /s 2 , which is the
same as the units for joules, as it must be.
 Kinetic Energy of a Skater: 5,000 Joules 23

For almost all situations you will encounter, the angle will be
one of three values: zero, 90, or 180 degrees. Most commonly, the
displacement direction is the same as the force direction. For in-
stance, if you throw a ball or lift a weight, the force and displace-
ment are in the same direction. In this case, θ = 0, so the work
is simply Fd. One other common case is when the force is per-
pendicular to the direction of motion. For instance, imagine that
you twirl a weight on a rope above your head. The rope is always
directing a force on the weight inwards (toward your hand), but
the weight is always moving tangent, along the circle. These two
are at right angles, so the rope is actually doing no work on the
weight. Remember, though, the rope is exerting a force. This is an
example where the force and work differ substantially.
Rather like power, work is a quantity that is only meaningful
when energy is being transferred from one form to another, or from
one object to another. The work, when you calculate it this way, tells
you how much energy is transferred during the process. Calculation
of the quantity of work, however, does not tell you what form the
energy was in before or after. Because of this, we always speak of one
object doing the work and one object on which work is done.
Now we come to a subject that can be troublesome for some
students. When we are calculating the “energy accounts,” the
amount of work done by an object must equal the amount of work
done to the other. To conserve energy, the sum of the two must
be zero. So, it must be the case that one is negative and the other
positive, and they add up to zero (equal and opposite.) Which is
positive, and which is negative?
You can look in Table 2.1 to see when work should be positive
and negative. So, we should slightly modify our equation.

You must choose the plus or minus sign correctly! This is

often confusing. After we discuss the relation between work and
kinetic energy, however, we will see a way to remember how to
get the signs right.
24 ENERGY

TABLE 2.1 Summary of Kinetic Energy and Work Done To

and By Objects

Displace- Work Work Kinetic Work Work Total

ment and Done Done Energy Done Done Energy
Example
Force on on by of by on of
Object Object Object Object Exerter Exerter Exerter

Lifting a
Parallel + – Increases + – Decreases
weight

Anti- Lowering
– + Decreases – + Increases
parallel a weight

Perpen- Going in
0 0 Constant 0 0 Constant
dicular circles

WORK AND KINETIC ENERGY

How is work related to kinetic energy? Remember when you were
learning to ride a bike? Your mom or dad would push you and then
let go and you would coast for a while. How can you predict your
final coasting speed?
Let us say they pushed you so that you accelerated at 10 m/s2
over a distance of 2 m, and your mass was 25 kg. Then the force is

And now we can calculate the work:

You accelerate in a straight line along the course, so the force

was in the same direction as the displacement. The angle θ is 0, so
cosθ = 1. The total work was 500 J.
 Kinetic Energy of a Skater: 5,000 Joules 25

PHYSICS IN HISTORY: Isaac Newton’s Secret Service

A s you may know, Isaac Newton is the man primarily responsible for
organizing the concepts of physics with energy, force, and work. For
this, he is justly revered as one of the great scientists of history. What you
probably don’t know is that science was not Newton’s primary occupa-
tion. In fact, Isaac Newton was employed by King William III of England to
detect and prosecute counterfeiters. This is what the United States Secret
Service does as its primary task, in addition to protecting the president.
You have surely noticed that dimes and quarters have rifled edges.
This idea is sometimes attributed to Isaac Newton. In his times (the late
seventeenth century), coins were made of precious metals such as silver.
Counterfeiters would remove a little bit of the edges of many coins, and
thereby obtain a little bit of silver. However, removing the edges like this
always leaves the edges perfectly smooth. By making the edges rifled
to start with, counterfeiters could not remove the silver for themselves
without being detected.
During the late seventeenth century, counterfeiting was a capital crime.
Newton was responsible for the hanging of more than 100 counterfeiters.
During his job at the Royal Mint, however, the physicist Daniel Bernoulli is-
sued a challenge to all European scientists to solve two problems that had
long been unsolved. Newton solved them in one evening and submitted
the solution anonymously to Bernoulli. Bernoulli instantly knew who had
written the solutions, saying, “I can recognize the lion by his paw.”

What is the speed? Well, all this work must have gone some-
where, by conservation of energy, so where did it go? It went
into increasing your kinetic energy. At the start line, the kinetic
energy was
26 ENERGY

Afterwards, your kinetic energy increased by 500 J:

We know that the kinetic energy is 1/2 mv 2 , so we can calcu-

late v:

Notice what we have done. Knowing just the energy expended,

we can calculate a velocity. You may have learned constant accelera-
tion formulas such as d = 1/2 at 2 in your class, but it wasn’t needed.
Sometimes, it is easier to use an energy- based approach to problems,
and sometimes it is easier to use the time-and-force approach.
The signs involved in work can be a little bit complicated.
Table 2.1 shows the signs of work and the kinetic energy. Finally,
remember that work is not a form of energy. Work signifies the
transfer of energy from one object to another and allows us to
calculate how much energy is transferred. If we are dealing with a
group or “system” of several objects, we need to take note of which
object is doing what work on each other object.

MEASURING KINETIC ENERGY

How would we measure the kinetic energy of an object that we are
observing? First, by examining our formula for kinetic energy:

We need to know the object’s mass and its velocity. In general,

kinetic energy is not measured directly but instead mass and ve-
locity are measured and the kinetic energy calculated. For large
 Kinetic Energy of a Skater: 5,000 Joules 27

objects, we can generally do this in fairly obvious ways. We can

use a scale to measure the mass of an object. (Most scales actu-
ally measure weight, rather than mass. An exception is a balance,
which measures mass fairly directly.) There are numerous ways to
measure velocity. The most direct method is simply to measure
the amount of time it takes to go a certain distance. As you prob-
ably know, there are other ways—for instance, the radar gun used
by police to catch highway speeders.
These, however, are not suitable ways to measure the kinetic
energy of very small objects. For instance, in biology experiments,
it is often necessary to measure the kinetic energy of one protein
molecule or of a fragment of a single DNA strand from one cell.
These microscopic objects cannot be put on a scale, nor can you
easily use a stopwatch to time them. They also do not move in a
straight line for very long.
Without going into great detail, it is possible to measure the
kinetic energy of such tiny objects. Kinetic energies measured in
such experiments are often measured in picojoules. These experi-
ments often use special f luorescent materials to measure the time
it takes to cross a certain distance and use combinations of electric
and magnetic fields to measure the mass.

KINETIC ENERGY AND COLLISIONS

When two moving objects collide, conservation of kinetic energy
leads us to be able to make conclusions about what could pos-
sibly happen as a result of the collision. If you throw a bowling
ball down the alley at the pins, the pins fly off very fast, but not
infinitely fast. How fast they could go is already limited by the
amount of kinetic energy transferred to the pins by the bowling
ball. For instance, imagine we have a collision between two ob-
jects. One has mass m1 and velocity v 1; the other has mass m 2 and
velocity v 2 . Then the total kinetic energy in the collision is
28 ENERGY

What is the largest possible velocity v 1m for object 1? Suppose

after the collision, object 2 stops and object 1 carries all the ki-
netic energy. Then

You can calculate in the same way that the maximum possible
velocity for object 2, if object 1 is at rest after the collision, is

For instance, in a bowling alley, the bowling ball might have a

mass of 5 kg and be moving at 3 m/s. The pins might have a mass
of 1.5 kg; they start at rest. Then, the maximum possible velocity
of a pin after a collision would be

There are other considerations in collisions, which are due to

conservation of momentum. The momentum of an object is its mass
times its velocity. Without going into details of momentum, we can-
not say more than what the maximum possible velocities are— in
particular, we cannot say what velocities actually will result. When
 Kinetic Energy of a Skater: 5,000 Joules 29

APPLIED PHYSICS: Roller Coasters

I f you go to Cedar Point Park in Sandusky, Ohio, you will find 17 roller
coasters ready for your entertainment. The tallest roller coaster is more
than 400 feet tall. Another very interesting coaster there is more than
300 feet tall— that’s about 100 meters. Let us walk through the energy at
the various points along the ride:

1. At the beginning: The passengers have just gotten in and the

roller coaster is not yet moving.
2. Moving up the slope: A winch system pulls the roller coaster
100 meters upwards. This winch does work, transferring the
energy of the winch system into the potential energy of the
roller coaster.
3. At the top: The roller coaster is moving very slowly just as it
reaches the top of the highest climb. The roller coasters have
a typical mass of 2,000 kg; at 100 meters in the air, its poten-
tial energy is 2 million joules.
4. The roller coaster rolls downhill without power. All the energy
comes from the potential energy of the starting height. It
speeds up as it goes downhill.
5. The roller coaster heads back uphill. It does not need any
more power to do this. It converts some of the kinetic energy
back to potential energy.
6. It heads back down again, converting fully back to kinetic
energy.
7. The roller coaster continues to convert energy back and forth
between kinetic and potential energy, without ever needing
an additional source of power. There is no motor in the roller
coaster.
8. Eventually, friction brakes turn all the kinetic and potential
energy into heat energy. The brake pads become very hot,
but the roller coaster comes to a halt with zero potential en-
ergy and zero kinetic energy.
30 ENERGY

Figure 2.2 It took a lot of energy to distort the metal and rubber on this car.

you consider momentum, it is possible to calculate precisely what

the final velocities are and not just their maximum values.
One interesting thing happens in many collisions. It is not un-
common that in a car crash, both cars come to rest, even though
the initial kinetic energy is often very large— millions of joules.
Where does this energy go? It gets divided into many different
kinds of energy. The most noticeable, at first, is the loud “crash-
ing” noise, which does require energy to make (although it is, in
fact, rather little energy). Also, the steel beams and plastic and
glass of the car have been twisted and shattered (Figure 2.2). This
 Kinetic Energy of a Skater: 5,000 Joules 31

took energy as well. And there is a lot of heat, especially where

the cars contacted and where the tires contacted the ground. The
heat is usually enough to burn some of the rubber on the tires.
This kind of collision, when the total kinetic energy afterward
is less than before, is called an inelastic collision. It does not mean
energy was destroyed; it only means some of it was changed from
kinetic energy into another form of energy, often heat.

KINETIC ENERGY OF ROTATION

When an object is rotating, it has kinetic energy, even if it is not
moving from place to place. So, it takes energy in order to set a
merry- go- round spinning, even though it does not move across the
park. The subject of energy of rotation is pretty complex, and we
won’t get into all of it here. We can, however, explore two fairly
simple cases. The first case is the weight- on- a- string.
The Olympic hammer throw competition involves hurling a
7kg weight on the end of a 2m steel cable. To throw it the maxi-
mum distance, the athlete wants to impart as much energy to the
ball as possible. The athletes spin themselves around, and when
they feel they cannot spin any faster, they release the “hammer”
to fly.
Most athletes reach a maximum rotation speed of one rotation
per second. How much energy is in the hammer when spinning
at this speed? In one second (the rotation period), the ball makes
one complete trip around a circle that is 2 meters in radius (the
length of the steel cable) and therefore 2πr meters in circumfer-
ence. So we can calculate the velocity:

We know how to calculate the kinetic energy, since we know

the velocity and mass:
32 ENERGY

So, if a weight on a string swings through one circle of radius r

in a period of time T and has radius r and mass m, then the kinetic
energy of rotation is

Now let us think about a bicycle wheel. It has many light

spokes and most of the weight is in the rim and tire. Imagine
you chopped up the wheel (Figure 2.3). Then, each piece of the
wheel- and- spoke would be like the weight- and-cable we calcu-
lated. The first piece would have mass m1 and kinetic energy

And we would add up all the little pieces:

But if you add up all the little masses (m1 + m 2 + m 3 + . . . ), then

that is just the original bicycle wheel mass m. So the formula

also works when the mass is not a ball rotating on a string, but is
a spinning hoop with spokes.
This formula, however, does not work for all shapes. A spin-
ning sphere (for instance, if you take a globe and spin it around)
has a slightly different formula, and a spinning disk also has a
different formula for the energy it requires. Luckily, the most
common things that spin are wheels, and they generally follow
this formula.
 Kinetic Energy of a Skater: 5,000 Joules 33

Figure 2.3 (a) A bicycle wheel and its spokes. (b) The bicycle wheel chopped into
small pieces. The total of the small pieces is the same as the whole wheel, but now
each individual piece acts like a weight on a string.

SKATERS, BIKES, AND HAMMERS

A very fast skater might reach speeds of 15 m/s (about 35 miles
per hour). If the skater weighs 45 kg, we can find their energy of
motion:

In the chapter title, we rounded this to 5,000 joules. So that

we can have some understanding of how much energy this is, this
amount of energy is approximately the same as:

• a biker going 35 miles per hour

• a 1,000kg car going 7 miles per hour
34 ENERGY

• a bowling ball going 100 miles per hour

• a bowling pin going 200 miles per hour
• an Olympic hammer rotating 3 times per second
• a 2kg bicycle wheel spinning 10 times every second.
 C HAPTER 3
Potential Energy of Liberty’s
Torch: 3.4 Million Joules

W H AT H A PPENS W HEN YOU DROP YOUR PENCIL ? E ASY— IT

falls down, gaining speed, until it hits the ground. Just be-
fore it hits the ground, you could measure its speed— it is cer-
tainly not zero! Its mass is not zero, either, so its kinetic energy is
also not zero.
This situation, just before it hits the ground, is one in which
we can calculate the total amount of energy, using KE = 1/2mv 2 .
This is very puzzling, because before you dropped your pencil,
it was not moving. Therefore, its kinetic energy was zero before
you dropped it. We might suspect that before it was dropped the
pencil had another form of energy that was somehow transformed
into kinetic energy as the pencil fell. We must learn how to calcu-
late, and the calculation of this new energy has something to do
with the position of the pencil just before it fell.
In fact, this energy, known as potential energy, is probably
the most common form of energy in the world. We can define it a
little more precisely in a moment, but let us just get some intuitive

35
36 ENERGY

idea what it might be. Potential energy is essentially the energy

that an object has “stored up,” due to having had work done on it
in the past.
Let us go back to our pencil. Suppose earlier in the day, it had
fallen to the f loor. You picked it up, and set it on your desk. Later
in the day, it fell back to the floor. What has happened, energeti-
cally speaking, to the pencil in this cycle?
First, you picked it up. You exerted a force on the pencil as
you brought it upwards. The force that you exerted was mg— the
mass m of the pencil times the acceleration g of gravity— in order
to just barely overcome gravity and slowly move it upwards at a
constant speed. What work did you do on it? You did Fdcosθ. If
your desk is at a height h, the amount of work done was mgh.
Now, the pencil is on your desk, not moving, but you have
done work on it. This work must have been converted into some
sort of energy. And in fact the amount of energy that was done
is mgh. It’s not kinetic energy, it’s not heat, and it’s not electrical.
But you know that if you drop the pencil, it will gain kinetic en-
ergy as it falls (since it will speed up until it hits the ground). So,
even though this energy is not obviously visible as the pencil sits
on your desk, it is real. It came from the work your muscles did as
you lifted it. The energy of lifting is now “stored” in the object.
This kind of unobvious energy that comes from work done in the
past is called potential energy.
This is a little bit mysterious, so let us probe it a little more.
Where is this energy stored? To answer that, first let’s recognize
why we had to do work in the first place: because there was a grav-
itational field caused by the enormous mass of the Earth. When
we lifted the pencil, we changed the distance between the pencil
and the center of the Earth— we changed the position of the pen-
cil in the Earth’s gravitational field. For this reason, we would call
the potential energy gravitational potential energy. The energy
is due to the configuration of pencil and gravitational field. If we
return to the old configuration (pencil on the f loor), we must
recover the work that was done in the first place (i.e., in the form
of kinetic energy).
 Potential Energy of Liberty’s Torch: 3.4 Million Joules 37

In all cases of potential energy, you will find that the work that
was done was due to the inf luence of some field of force. In doing
the work, the configuration of objects in the field was changed.
This new and different configuration is why a potential for energy
exists. For instance, by returning to the original configuration, the
work that was done can be released— often as kinetic energy. It
can also be released in other ways, for instance, as heat.
The field need not always be gravitational. In fact, most us-
able potential energy in the world is due to the configuration of
electrical charges in an electric field. You do not need to know all
the details of electric fields to understand this. Just as in the case
of gravity, electric fields exert forces on charges. If you do work to
move charges in the fields and change the configuration, the charge
will come to have potential energy. In this case, it will be electrical
potential energy.
Is potential energy really energy? Or is it just an accounting trick
to make it seem that energy is conserved? In short, potential energy
is real energy. Compare potential energy to kinetic energy. We can
calculate how much kinetic energy there is. It can be transferred to
other forms of energy (like heat), or to other objects. It comes about
as a result of work done, a force times a displacement. And it forms
part of a system total energy that must be conserved. Potential en-
ergy shares every one of these properties, just like kinetic energy.

KINETICS, POTENTIAL, AND BALLISTICS

Early studies of kinetic and potential energies actually came from
the work of Benjamin Robins, who put Isaac Newton’s theories
to the test in order to improve the English army’s understanding
of ballistics. Ballistics is the study of the path of projectiles after
they have been launched (Figure 3.1). The English army was inter-
ested in how to improve the accuracy of their artillery weapons.
When a projectile is launched straight upwards, its basic path
can be described as:

• starting with an initial upwards velocity v 0

• rising, and simultaneously slowing down
38 ENERGY

Figure 3.1 When a projectile is launched upwards, its energy passes from kinetic, to
potential, and back to kinetic.

• reaching the top of its f light, where for an instant the

velocity is 0
• falling, and speeding up (downwards)
• returning to the ground at a high final velocity.

We might wonder what the final velocity of the projectile

must be when it returns to the ground. If there is no friction
due to air resistance, we can use energy conservation to figure
this out. Because the total energy of the projectile is conserved,
when the projectile returns to its starting point, the kinetic
energy must be the same as when it left the cannon. So, the
final velocity speed must be equal to the initial speed; except
that the velocity vector has changed direction from upwards
to downwards.
 Potential Energy of Liberty’s Torch: 3.4 Million Joules 39

Again, if there is no friction, what height must the projectile

reach? The total energy, kinetic plus potential, as it is launched, is

When it reaches the top, the velocity (for an instant) is 0, so

the total energy is

Because energy is conserved, these two must be equal, so

So, knowing the initial velocity, we can calculate the height

that the projectile reaches. When it reaches that height, the ki-
netic energy has been changed entirely to potential energy. When
it reaches the ground again, it’s like dropping the projectile from
that height: the potential energy changes back into kinetic energy.
So, the process of rising and falling, when written in terms of en-
ergy, looks like this:

• Initially all of the projectile’s energy is kinetic.

• As the projectile rises, its kinetic energy is being con-
verted into potential energy (slowing down, but rising
in height).
• At the top, all the energy is potential (no velocity, only
height).
• As the projectile falls, potential energy is being con-
verted back to kinetic (lowering in height, and speed-
ing up).
• Finally, when the projectile nears the ground all of its
energy is kinetic (the change in potential is 0).

Of course, an English cannoneer who fired straight up would

not be of much use to the army! Instead, it is even more useful
40 ENERGY

to determine the maximum range of a projectile, if it is fired at

an angle. Benjamin Robins determined that if there is no air re-
sistance, a cannonball fired at a 45 o angle sails the farthest. Its
maximum distance dmax is related to the initial kinetic energy KE,
the mass of the projectile m, and the acceleration of gravity g:

Mr. Robins also determined that when you consider air resis-
tance, the maximum range angle is actually closer to 30 degrees
and the maximum range is reduced. But the essence of the situ-
ation is the same: The higher the initial energy, the farther the
projectile will go.

THE ZERO- POINT OF POTENTIAL ENERGY

The measurement of potential energy mgh is always a little indi-
rect. Why? The potential energy depends on how you measure h.
Suppose your pencil is on your desk in a classroom on the fourth
f loor of your school. Or perhaps the pencil is on a desk on the
first f loor or in the basement. Is the potential energy of the pencil
on the desk the same in each case? If you choose to measure the
height h of the pencil from the floor to the desktop, the pencil’s
potential energy mgh is the same whether the desk is on the first
f loor, fourth f loor, or the basement. If you choose to measure the
height h of the pencil from the ground level to the desktop, the
pencils on the different f loors have different potential energies
(Figure 3.2).
Nevertheless, when you push the pencil off the desktop, it falls
to the floor, no matter if the desk is on the fourth floor, first floor,
or basement floor. The potential energy difference between (a) the
pencil on the desk and (b) the pencil on the floor is what causes
the motion of the pencil. This potential energy difference is the
same regardless of whether the floor is below the Earth’s ground,
above ground, or at ground level. The potential energy difference,
however, between (a) the pencil on the desk and (b) the pencil on
 Potential Energy of Liberty’s Torch: 3.4 Million Joules 41

Figure 3.2 The potential difference from desk to floor is the same no matter where in
the school you are. The potential difference to the ground level, however, is different
for each floor.
42 ENERGY

the (Earth’s) ground does of course depend on where the desk is

in relation to the ground.
This brings us to recognize that only potential energy differ-
ences are meaningful. You can define two configurations (i.e., one
configuration is the pencil on the desk, another configuration is
the pencil falling to the f loor) and ask what is the potential energy
difference between them— that is a meaningful question, and the
answer tells you how much energy will be released (or, if negative,
how much must be put in) when going from one configuration to
the other. So to answer the question “What is the potential energy
of this configuration? ” you have to define carefully how you will
measure the potential energy.
Sometimes physics teachers rephrase this fact, saying, “We are
free to choose the zero of potential energy.” Probably you have
used a scale, perhaps in chemistry class, which allowed you to
“zero” the scale with a container on top of it. You could have
simply measured the weight of the container and object, then sub-
tracted the weight of the container. But it was easier simply to put
the container on the scale and zero it. The idea is the same with
potential energy. You can take the difference in potential energy
between two configurations, or you could define one configura-
tion as having zero potential energy. In either case, you are really
taking the difference, just as on the scale all you are really doing
is subtracting the weight of the container.
So, now we can correct our earlier statement that the potential
energy of the pencil is mgh. In fact, we should have said that the po-
tential energy change in lifting the pencil to your desk was mgΔh.

WORK, POTENTIAL, KINETIC,

AND LIFTING
If you want to know for sure that you are really doing work, recog-
nize that work can always be used, one way or another, to move a
mass. In fact, it is useful to draw little diagrams to convince your-
self that you are dealing with work rather than, for instance, heat.
Potential and kinetic energy are sometimes collectively called
mechanical energy. Potential and kinetic energy are always fully
 Potential Energy of Liberty’s Torch: 3.4 Million Joules 43

TABLE 3.1 Summary of Mechanical Energy and Work Done

To and By Objects

Displace- Work Work Mechanical Work Work Mechanical

ment & Done Done Energy Done Done Energy
Example
Force on on by Change of by on Change of
Object Object Object Object Exerter Exerter Exerter

Increases Decreases Lifting a

Parallel + – + –
(+) (–) weight

Lower-
Anti- Decreases Increases
– + – + ing a
parallel (–) (+)
weight

Perpen- Going in
0 0 Constant 0 0 Constant
dicular circles

available to be converted into work and into each other. Table 3.1,
very similar to the table in the previous chapter, is now updated to
include potential energy. So, mechanical energy can be any com-
bination of potential and kinetic energy.
Table 3.1 also brings an interesting point to our attention. For
any object (or exerter), the change in mechanical energy (E M ) has
a sign opposite to the work done by the object and equal to work
done on the object. So, we have the following relations:

Again, the ΔE M can be purely potential energy changes, purely

kinetic energy changes, or a combination of the two.
For instance, Figure 3.3 shows (a) an example of using kinetic
energy to do work in lifting a weight and (b) an example of using
gravitational potential energy to do work in lifting a weight. In
44 ENERGY

Figure 3.3 (a) Using kinetic energy to lift a weight. (b) Using gravitational potential
energy to lift a weight. In general, if you can figure out a way to lift a weight, then the
situation has the possibility to do work.

general, if you can use the situation to lift a weight (and thereby
do real work), the situation is suitable for extracting work.

ESCAPE VELOCITY
The Earth orbits the Sun, year after year, without flying away
from it. We say that the Earth is gravitationally bound to the Sun.
What does this mean? It means that if you want to pull the Earth
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BY
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ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD
 WITH INTRODUCTION BY
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REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1911
 PREFACE
The life of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, generally
known to the world as Heliogabalus, is as yet shrouded in
impenetrable mystery. The picture we have of the reign is that of an
imperial orgy—sacrilegious, necromantic, and obscene. The boy
Emperor, who reigned from his fourteenth to his eighteenth year, is
depicted amongst that crowd of tyrants who held the throne of
Imperial Rome, by the help of the praetorian army, as one of the
most tyrannical, certainly as the most debased.
Few people have made any study of the documents which relate
to this particular period, and fewer still have taken the trouble to
inquire whether the accounts of the Scriptores are trustworthy or
consonant with the known facts.
To this present time no account of the life of this Emperor has
been published. Histories of the decline and fall of Imperial Rome
there are in plenty; other reigns have been examined in detail;
German critics have sifted the trustworthiness of the documents, few
in number and all late in date, which refer to other reigns; so far
nothing has been done on the life of Elagabalus.
The present writer started this study with the view that the Syrian
boy-Emperor was, in all probability, what his biographers have
painted him, and what all other writers have accepted as being a
substantially correct account of the absence of mind, will, policy, and
authority which he was supposed to have betrayed, along with other
even more reprehensible characteristics.
The first reason to doubt this estimate came from the continually
recurring mention of a perpetual struggle between the Emperor and
his female relatives; a fight in which the boy was always worsting
able and resolute women, carrying his point with consummate tact
and ability, while allowing the women a certain show of dignity and
position, where it in no way diminished the imperial authority or his
own prerogative.
This circumstance alone was scarcely consonant with Lampridius’
account of a mere youthful debauchee, who had neither inclination
nor will for anything, save a low desire to wallow in vice and
unspeakable horrors as the be-all and end-all of his existence.
On further inquiry, another circumstance obtruded itself, namely,
that the boy had a vast religious scheme or policy, which he was
bent on imposing on his subjects in Rome, and indeed throughout
the world. This policy was the unification of churches in one great
monotheistic ideal.
Religion may be neurotic in itself, but the scheme of Elagabalus
was not essentially so. Certainly the course of action by which he
purposed to effect his ideal was not that of a mere sensualist. It
showed understanding, persistency, and dogged determination; it
was not popular, because in the general incredulity, the earlier
deities had lost even the immortality of mummies.
Yet another reason which forced one to disagree with the usual
summary of the character under discussion was that, despite (1) the
awful accounts of the imperial orgies; (2) the accusations brought
against the cruelty and incompetency of the government; (3) the
announcement that all good men were exterminated in the general
lust for destruction of such worthies; (4) the account of the class
and calibre of the men employed in all state offices; (despite all this)
the authors inform us that the state did not suffer from the effects of
the reign. This was obviously an impossibility at the outset, and the
terminological inexactitude became even more apparent when all the
known good men were mentioned as peaceably holding office, not
only during the reign in question, but in that of Elagabalus’
successor; either they had been resurrected or had never been
exterminated.
 Again, the account given of the military policy is not that which
would be the work of a weakling. The fiscal policy may have been
unchanged, but the edict which enforced the payment of Vectigalia
in gold, showed a considerable amount of sense, in demanding the
payment of taxes in the one coin whose standard had been
maintained when all others had been debased by preceding
Emperors, and no one had been worse than the great financier
Septimius Severus in this debasing of the currency.
In legal matters alone we are told that the period was sterile,
because only five decrees of the reign are recorded by the editors of
the Prosopographia. This may be true, but it is quite possible, in fact
more than probable, that in later redactions much of the work which
Papinian, Paul, Ulpian, and other such produced during this reign has
been embodied in later decrees or codifications, and one can
scarcely imagine that these men were entirely sterile for four years
in the zenith of their authority.
Again, it is most noticeable that in the mass of abuse and obvious
animus which the “life” exhibits, there is not one definite act of
cruelty reported; no wanton murder is cited; no hint given that the
people were discontented with the appointments made, or that they
suffered from any of the misrule which had been so prevalent for
years past. On the other hand, we are told that the people
considered Elagabalus a worthy Emperor, despite all that could be
said to his discredit.
Chiefly it was this too obvious animus, shown on each page of the
documents, which led the writer to examine the opinions of German
and Italian critics on the measure of credibility which could safely be
attached to the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. It was an agreeable
surprise to find that their estimates of the Scriptores ranged from
those of men who stigmatised the whole collection as an impudent
and unenlightened forgery to men who, like Mommsen, contended
that, though originally the lives might have had some real historical
value, they had been so edited and enlarged as to lack the essential
weight of historical evidence, and contained, as they stood, but a
modicum of consecutive and unvarnished fact.
Authorities being so far in accord, the present writer set to work to
sift the accounts which were obviously quite unnaturally biased, and
to separate what was merely stupidly contradictory from what was
mutually exclusive.
This method has been applied merely to the first seventeen
sections of Lampridius’ work, the portion which professes to contain
a more or less historical account of the events from Elagabalus’ entry
into Rome to his disappearance into the main drain of the city.
In the latter portion of the life there is a wealth of biographical
detail, which, in plain English, means an account in extenso of what
has been already described too luridly in the foregoing sections. It is
written in Latin, and has never been translated into English, to the
writer’s knowledge, nor has he any intention of undertaking the
work at this present or any other time, as he has no desire to land
himself, with the printers and publishers, in the dock at the Old
Bailey, in an unenviable, if not an invidious and notorious position.
Those, however, who are capable of reading the Latin tongue, and
therefore inured against further corruption, will find an excellent
edition published in Paris by M. Panckoucke in 1847. The last three
chapters in the present volume are an attempt to bring together all
the material capable of publication in these seventeen sections, and
take the form of three essays on the main figures of the Emperor’s
psychological imagination. They are in no way an endeavour to
expurgate the sections referred to, as any such attempt would leave
one with the numerals as headings and the word “Finis” half-way
down a sheet of notepaper. It is better for the sapient to read the
chapters for themselves, and so all men will be satisfied.
It has also been impossible, on the same grounds, to criticise the
statements here made; the greater part are, like those in the
biographical portion, frankly impossible, when not mutually
exclusive. It is needless to say that the author accepts the whole
with all the Attic salt at his disposal.
Another anomaly that may strike the reader is the fact that various
names are used to designate the Emperor. Tristran remarks that
“they are as many as the hydra has heads.” The present idea is to
use the titles which the boy bore at the different stages of his life,
rather than apply to him on all occasions the nickname which was
attached to him after his death.
In the earlier part of the work I have referred to the youth as
Varius and Bassianus, the two names which appear most frequently,
in reference to his reputed fathers, but have neglected Avitus, by
which title he is occasionally known, in reference to his grandfather,
as also that of Lupus, which is sometimes found in Dion, because, as
Dr. Wotton remarks, there is no means of finding out whether he
was so called (if ever he was given the name at all) on account of
some ancestry, by reason of a false reading, or on account of some
other matter now long laid to rest.
After the Proclamation, I have preferred to call the Emperor by his
official name, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, or Antonine for short, as
this is the only manner in which the coins, inscriptions, and
documents describe him. After his death, it seems allowable to give
him the nickname which his relations and later biographers have
applied to him, namely, the latinised form of the name of his God. I
have nowhere adopted the later Greek spelling or adaptation,
Heliogabalus, either when referring to the God of the Emesans or to
the Emperor himself. The only form in which the name occurs in
inscriptions is in describing the Emperor as “Priest of Elagabal” or
the Sun. Lampridius certainly Hellenised its form a century later, on
what grounds is by no means clear, when one realises that neither
the boy nor his God had any trace of Greek blood, tradition, or
philosophy about them, and that the identification of a particular
Syrian monotheism with Mithraism or general Sun worship is not
universally admitted as a necessary consequence, either in the case
of Elagabal, Jehovah, or indeed in that of any of the other “El”
claimants to exclusiveness, though the balance of probability may lie
on the side of the identification. It is further unnecessary to drag in
the Hellenised form of the Emperor’s name in order to pander to a
popular and erroneous conception of the reign, which conception
this book is designed to combat and generally offend. Heliogabalus
is nevertheless the sole title by which this Emperor is known to the
world at large, in consequence of which I have allowed the name to
stand on the title-page, chiefly in order that Mrs. Grundy’s prurient
mind may know, before she buys or borrows this volume, that it is
the record of a life at which she may expect to be shocked, though
she will in all probability find herself yawning before the middle of
the introductory chapter.
As I understand the reign, the main object on the part of the boy’s
murderers in nicknaming him Elagabalus after his death, was to
throw discredit on his memory by depriving him of the venerated
title Antonine, and substituting therefor the name of a Syrian
monotheistic deity, who by his exclusiveness was an offence and a
byword in the eyes of the virile, pantheistic philosophy which then
held sway.
A word must also be said as to the attitude in leaving untouched
much of the scandal attaching to this Emperor’s name. I have only
been able to deal with the public side of his character, as there are
no coins or inscriptions which refer to his private life, and have in
consequence been forced to quote what the tradition, gained from
his traducers’ writings, states was his unfortunate abnormality.
These traditions may be true wholly or in part, they certainly could
only be disproved by the actual persons implicated, who have
written neither for nor against the Emperor’s psychological condition.
The traditions, however, as far as they treat of the public position
and reputation of the Emperor, have been shown to be grossly unfair
where they are not horribly untruthful, and may be—in all probability
are—of an equal value, when they discuss private practices about
which no one can have had any particular knowledge except his
actual accomplices. Suffice it to say, that any stick is good enough to
beat a dog with once he is incapable of defending himself, and in
this case it has been laid about Antonine’s shoulders with almost
diabolical ingenuity.
I much regret that I have been unable to find any portraits of the
Emperor for whose authenticity Bernouilli will vouch. Alone of the
whole family there remain authentic busts of Julia Mamaea and Julia
Paula, neither of whom are important enough to be included, since
we are unable to give a portrait of Elagabalus himself. I have
therefore confined myself to the use of coins, whose veracity is
undoubted, hoping that the reader will supply from his imagination
that charm and beauty which the biographers have been unwillingly
forced to allow both to the Emperor and his mother.
In the preparation of this work I have had much valuable and
kindly assistance, for which I desire to acknowledge my deep
indebtedness here. First, to Professor Bury of Cambridge, for his
unwearying and sage advice on my whole manuscript; also to Dr.
Bussell, Vice-Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford, for his interest
and kindly corrections; to the authorities in the Bodleian Library; to
the assistants in the British Museum, especially to Mr. Philip Wilson
and Mr. A. J. Ellis for their continued help in my work there, and to
Mr. Allen for the time and care he has spent in helping me find the
coins that explain the text.
I have also to acknowledge with sincere thanks the permission of
Mr. E. E. Saltus of Harvard University to quote his vivid and beautiful
studies on the Roman Empire and her Customs. I am deeply
indebted to Mr. Walter Pater, Mr. J. A. Symonds, and Mr. Saltus for
many a tournure de phrase and picturesque rendering of Tacitus,
Suetonius, Lampridius, and the rest. I also desire to thank Dr.
Counsell of New College, Oxford, and Dr. Bailey of the Warneford
Asylum, not only for their help in correcting my proofs, but also for
their assistance in the preparation of my chapter on Psychology.
To all these gentlemen I owe a great debt, which, I hope, the
general public will repay by an appreciation of their work. We have
endeavoured to right a wrong; if our efforts are in any way
successful, the reader will acknowledge that this mauvais quart
d’heure, which has been stigmatised as full of impossible situations
and intolerable surprises, is in reality a very human life which, like
our own, has its exquisite moments of which we would as soon
deprive ourselves as Elagabalus.
 CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction
xxiii

PART I

CHAPTER I
General sketch of conditions, 1. The Augustan Histories and their writers, 2.
Lampridius, author of the Life of Elagabalus, 4. First attempts at criticism, 4.
Modern criticism, 4. Latin sources: Marius Maximus, 5. Greek sources: Dion
Cassius, Xiphilinus, 7. Herodian, 8. General attack on the authenticity of the
“Lives,” 9. Mommsen’s opinion, 10. Peter, Richter, Dessau, Seeck, Klebs,
Kornemann, 11-15. Italian opinion, 15. General opinion of the biographies, 16.
Reasons for the tainted sources, 18. Church historians, 19. Jurisprudence, 21.
Numismatists, 21. Object of this work, 23.

CHAPTER II
Emesa, 24. High-Priest Kings, 25. Septimius Severus, 27. Julius Bassianus, 27. Julia
Domna’s marriage, 28. Caracalla’s birth, 29. Septimius Severus, Emperor, 30.
Julia’s court, 31. Maesa comes to Rome with her family, 31. Marriage of
Soaemias, 34. Birth of Elagabalus, 35. Paternity of Elagabalus, 35. Birthplace
of Elagabalus, 36. Julia Mamaea, her marriage, and her connection with
Caracalla, 38. Macrinus Praetorian Praefect, 41. His plot against Caracalla, 42.
Election of Macrinus, 43. Julia’s position, 43. Her work to recover the empire,
43. Banishment and death, 44.

CHAPTER III
Maesa’s return to Emesa, 46. Macrinus’ weakness and tyranny, 47. The legion at
Emesa, 48. Bassianus High-Priest, 49. Worship of Elagabal, 50. Bassianus’
religious outlook, 51. Eutychianus and Gannys corrupt the soldiers, 53. Date of
the proclamation of Elagabalus, 55. Macrinus astonished, 56. The Empire in
favour of Bassianus, Julian’s expedition, 59. Deserters to Bassianus, 61.
Macrinus at Apamea, and Diadumenianus’ elevation, 63. Macrinus retires to
Antioch, 66. Bassianus wins allegiance of soldiers at Apamea, 67. Dion on the
dates of proclamation and battle, 67. Arval Brothers’ meeting, 68. Wirth, 69.
Battle of Immae, 69. Antonine at Antioch, 71. Macrinus’ escape, 72. Capture
and death, 74. Character of Macrinus, 75.
 CHAPTER IV
Antonine’s refusal to allow the sack of Antioch, 77. Chief minister, 78. Antonine’s
temperament, 79. Acts of the new Government, 81. Amnesty, 83. Position of
the Senate, 84. Delight of Rome, 86. Dismissal of troops, 87. Treasonable
attempts and pretenders, 88. Elagabal to accompany the Emperor, 91. Journey
to Nicomedia, 92. Winter in Asia Minor, 93. Illness of the Emperor, 94.
Xiphilinus on Antonine’s religion, 95. Monotheistic or Mithraic not polytheistic,
96. Death of Gannys, 101. Antonine’s character, 102. His popularity and his
taxation, 104.

CHAPTER V
Date of arrival in Rome discussed, 107. The entry into the city according to
Herodian, 110. First marriage, 111. The temples, 112. The scheme for the
unifying of religions, 114. The worship, 115. The Eastern cults, 115. Date of
scheme discussed, 118. Reasons for its failure, 118. Women in the Senate,
119. Senaculum, 121. Lampridius on the Emperor’s popularity, 124. Charges
against the Administration, 125. Divorce of Julia Paula, 126. Pastimes, 127.
Summary, 128. Elagabal’s alliance with Vesta, Antonine’s with Aquilia Severa,
129. Pomponius Bassus’ plot, 131. Antonine divorces Elagabal from Minerva,
himself from Aquilia Severa, 132. Sends for Tanit from Carthage, 133. Marries
Annia Faustina, 134. Alliance of Maesa and Mamaea, 135.

CHAPTER VI
Lampridius on Alexander, 137. Seius Carus’ plot, 139. Military expenditure, 140.
Maesa’s plan for the adoption of Alexander, 141. The Emperor’s reasons for
concurrence, 142. Name Alexander accounted for, 144. Date of adoption
discussed, 145. Position after adoption, 146. Alexander’s titles, 147. Antonine’s
endeavours, 148. Antonine’s resolve to divorce Annia Faustina and disown
Alexander, 150. Accusations against the Government, 151. Antonine’s attempt
to assassinate Alexander discussed, 152. Antonine goes to Praetorian camp,
154. Camp conference, 155. Hatred of Maesa and Mamaea testified against
Antonine, 157. Mamaea’s precautions, 158. Antonine’s preparations for suicide,
160. Alexander designated Consul, 160. The Emperor’s refusal and reasons for
his compliance, 161. Lampridius on Julius Sabinus, 163. Ulpian and Silvinus,
164. Reasons for the murder and the various accounts, 165. Criticism on the
above, 170. The treatment of Elagabalus’ body, 171.

CHAPTER VII
The Emperor set free to further his cult, 173. The procession, 174.
Mismanagement and appointments, 178. Freedmen, 180. Return of Aquilia
Severa, 183. Desire for military glory, 184. The names of the Emperor, 185.
Activity in building, 186. Military disaffection, its causes and result, 188. Date
of Elagabalus’ murder and length of reign discussed, 191. Date for renewal of
 tribunician power discussed, 194. Elagabalus’ interest in public affairs, 198.
The treatment of inscriptions, 198. Outlook of the Roman world, 200.

CHAPTER VIII
Roman views on matrimony, 203. Elagabalus’ marriage with Julia Paula, 205.
Position of Julius Paulus, 206. Serviez, etc., on Julia Paula, 207. Dates of this
marriage and divorce, 208. Elagabalus’ marriage with Aquilia Severa, 211.
Vestals discussed, 211. Roman religion, 212. Elagabalus’ lack of prejudice,
214. His explanation to the Senate, 215. Family of Aquilia Severa, 215.
Probable dates of marriage and divorce, 216-18. Maesa’s desire for an alliance
with the nobility, 218. Annia Faustina chosen, her family discussed, 222. Her
age and her divorce, 223. Further marriages discussed, 224. Elagabalus’ return
to Aquilia, 225.

PART II

CHAPTER IX
Lampridius’ Life of Elagabalus impossible, 227. Elagabalus a psycho-sexual
hermaphrodite, not wicked, 229. The condition quite usual then as now, 229.
Virtue a virile quality, not a neurotic negation, 229. The Phallus natural and
omnipresent typifies joy and fruitfulness, 230. Elagabalus has strong
homosexual nymphomania and every inducement to gratify his feminine
instinct, 231. His nature incredibly open and affectionate, 232. Maesa an
aggravating factor, 234. Modern authorities on similarly inverted cases to-day,
234. Biblical parallels, Greek instances, modern religious tendencies, 234.
Normal intolerance largely hypocritical, 235. The usual instincts of such
natures, 235. Elagabalus’ love of flowers, feasts, and teasing, 236. His
marriages psychologically considered, 238. His castration and desire for an
operation which might produce the female organs discussed, 238. Elagabalus’
marriage with Hierocles, 239. Hierocles and Zoticus discussed, 239.
Comparison with Messalina, 240. Spintries, 240. Elagabalus’ love of colour,
241. His frankness, 241. Greek love opposed to effeminacy, 242. Gulick on the
psychology, on Christianity, 242. Effeminacy, not homosexuality, disgusts
Roman world and gives reason for Elagabalus’ downfall, 244.

CHAPTER X
Description of Nero’s golden house, 245. Elagabalus compared with Nero, 246.
Pastimes, prodigalities, and dress, 246. Extravagances of ritual, 250.
Congiaries and games, 251. Table appointments and food, 252. Maecenas’
feast, 254. Perfumes, 256. Fish, 258. The spectacles described, 260. Gladiators
discussed, 262. Elagabalus’ skill as a sportsman, 263. The lotteries, 264.
Elagabalus’ devices for suicide, 265. The psychology of extravagance, 266.

CHAPTER XI
Elagabalus’ piety, 267. Constantine the opponent of other monotheisms, 268.
Theories of religion, 269. Civilised religion becomes philosophical, 269. Rome
both atheist and credulous, 270. Civic religion leaves the forces of sex and
superstition out of count, 270. Gods always necessary to the superstitious, the
more mystical the more attractive, 271. Semitic rituals attract the mob, 273.
Elagabal exclusive and absorbs other cults, 273. Elagabalus’ scheme Erastian,
compared with Tudor conception, 273. Elagabalus will not persecute, 276.
Religion and castration, 276. Elagabalus no idolator, 277. His mistake in trying
to amalgamate the hated Judaism with Roman deities, 277. Marriages of
Elagabal, 278. Human sacrifices discussed, 280. The column for the meteorite,
281. Contest between religion and dogma, 282. The numbers of the mob
prevail against the rationalists, 284. Rome bored with all Gods, hence
Elagabalus’ failure, 285.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 289

INDEX 299
 LIST OF COINS
Facing
page

Coin of Antoninus Pius, struck at Emesa (British Museum) 26

Coin of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) (British
Museum) 26
Medal of Julia Domna Pia, Empress (British Museum) 40
Coin of Julia Maesa Augusta (British Museum) 40
Coin of Julia Soaemias Augusta (British Museum) 40
Coin of Julia Mamaea Augusta (British Museum) 40
Coin of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) (British
Museum) 60
Coin of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Elagabalus) (British
Museum) 60
Coin of Macrinus recording Victoria Parthica, a.d. 218.
(From a woodcut) 60
Coin of Diadumenianus as Emperor, a.d. 218 (British
Museum) 60
Coin of a.d. 219 commemorating the arrival of Elagabalus
in Rome (British Museum) 110
Liberalitas II. Coin struck in a.d. 219 for the Emperor’s
marriage with Julia Cornelia Paula. (From the
collection of Sir James S. Hay, K.C.M.G.) 110
Coin struck in a.d. 219 concerning the grain supply (British
Museum) 110
Coin struck in a.d. 219 to commemorate the Emperor’s
recovery (British Museum) 110
Thyatira Coin of Elagabalus (British Museum) 142
Coin struck to commemorate Alexianus’ adoption, a.d. 221
(British Museum) 142
Coin struck to commemorate Alexander as Pont. Max., a.d.
221 (British Museum) 142
Jovi Ultiori. The Eliogabalium as reconsecrated to Jupiter,
a.d. 224. (From a woodcut) 174
Coin struck to commemorate the Procession of Elagabal,
a.d. 221 (British Museum) 174
Coin of a.d. 221 representing the Eliogabalium. (From a
photogravure) 174
Coin of a.d. 220, misread by Cohen as T.P. III Cos. IIII
(British Museum) 196
Coin of a.d. 221, misread by Cohen as T.P. IIII Cos. IIII
(British Museum) 196
Coin of a.d. 222 (British Museum) 196
Coin of Julia Cornelia Paula Augusta (British Museum) 216
Coin of Julia Cornelia Paula Augusta, a.d. 220-21 (British
Museum) 216
Coin of Julia Aquilia Severa Augusta, a.d. 220-21 (British
Museum) 216
Coin of Annia Faustina Augusta, a.d. 221-22 (British
Museum) 216
Coin of Julia Aquilia Severa Augusta, a.d. 221-22 (British
Museum) 216
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