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Oxygen is the third most abundant chemical element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium. [68] About 0.9% of the Sun's mass is oxygen. [19] Oxygen constitutes 49.2% of the Earth's crust by mass [69] as part of oxide compounds such as silicon dioxide and is the most abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust.
Photosynthetic oxygen evolution is the fundamental process by which oxygen is generated in the earth's biosphere. The reaction is part of the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of green algae and plants. It utilizes the energy of light to split a water molecule into its protons and electrons for ...
Energy (from Ancient Greek ἐνέργεια (enérgeia) 'activity') is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat and light. Energy is a conserved quantity—the law of conservation of energy states that energy can be converted in form, but ...
The law is called conservation of energy; it states that there is a certain quantity, which we call energy that does not change in manifold changes which nature undergoes. That is a most abstract idea, because it is a mathematical principle; it says that there is a numerical quantity, which does not change when something happens.
Mass–energy equivalence states that all objects having mass, or massive objects, have a corresponding intrinsic energy, even when they are stationary.In the rest frame of an object, where by definition it is motionless and so has no momentum, the mass and energy are equal or they differ only by a constant factor, the speed of light squared (c 2).
The terms kinetic energy and work in their present scientific meanings date back to the mid-19th century. Early understandings of these ideas can be attributed to Thomas Young, who in his 1802 lecture to the Royal Society, was the first to use the term energy to refer to kinetic energy in its modern sense, instead of vis viva.
The inverse or time-reversed process of absorption is thermal radiation. Much of the thermal energy in matter consists of random motion of charged particles, and this energy can be radiated away from the matter. The resulting radiation may subsequently be absorbed by another piece of matter, with the deposited energy heating the material. [55]
The speed at which light propagates through transparent materials, such as glass or air, is less than c; similarly, the speed of electromagnetic waves in wire cables is slower than c. The ratio between c and the speed v at which light travels in a material is called the refractive index n of the material (n = c / v ).