Pretty odd question, but anyway; does energy age?

Question: Pretty odd question, but anyway; does energy age?
- Keywords:
  energy,
  properties,
  quirky
Asked by cyanogen_ to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 11 Nov 2014.
- Matthew Camilleri answered on 11 Nov 2014:
  
  Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be transferred from one form to another. Using this statements all the energy we have has bee around from the beginning of time so it quite old.
  
  Does age effect energy, then the question is no, but if you want to give an age to all of the energy around us one can easily say it is as old as time itself.
- Laura Schofield answered on 11 Nov 2014:
  
  As Matthew said, energy has been around forever. I think it’s a good question though. Energy doesn’t “go off” but we have to find ways of storing it once we have converted it into something useful. One of the big problems facing clean energy technology is that quite often our renewable sources of energy are not constant. Solar power only works when the Sun is up, Wind power only works when the wind is blowing. The question is, if we have a really windy day and manage to convert the kinetic energy from the wind into electrical energy we can use to make our tv’s work, but the next day isn’t windy at all, how do we store energy on the windy day to last when it isn’t windy?! And unfortunately I do not have an answer for that.
- Andrew McKinley answered on 11 Nov 2014:
  
  It’s really already been answered by Matthew and Laura – it doesn’t age – it can’t age. Energy, really, is just a stream of photons.
  
  An interesting thought is that energy and matter can interconvert. This is the basis of Einstein’s equation “E = mc2” or, to give it its full term:
  
  E2 = m2c4 + p2c2
  
  Basically it’s saying that you can convert mass directly to energy using the speed of light, c. “p” in this case is momentum.
  
  When a positron and an electron (each is the anti-particle of the other) meet each other, they annihilate – that means they are totally destroyed, and emit a photon of energy. But the reverse can also happen – you can take a photon of appropriate energy, and convert it into a particle and its corresponding anti-particle.
  
  Energy is constantly doing this, so how ‘old’ is energy? It’s almost like saying how “old” is your body? While I have been around for 32 years, the oldest cell in my body is likely only 9 or 10 years old.
- Francesca Palombo answered on 11 Nov 2014:
  
  Wow no, it transforms but doesn’t age – I wouldn’t say that energy has an age.

Question: Pretty odd question, but anyway; does energy age?

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