Free energy may refer to:
In science:
- Thermodynamic free energy, the energy in a physical system that can be converted to do work, in particular:
- Helmholtz free energy, the energy that can be converted into work at a constant temperature and volume
- Work content, a related concept used in chemistry
- Gibbs free energy, the energy that can be converted into work at a uniform temperature and pressure throughout a system
- Variational free energy, a construct from Information theory that is used in Variational Bayesian methods
In pseudoscience:
- Free energy device, a hypothetical device that creates energy in a hypothetical isolated system, i.e. without any external input, thereby contradicting the laws of thermodynamics
- Free energy suppression, a conspiracy theory that advanced energy technologies are being suppressed by special interest groups
In music
- Free Energy (band), a 5-piece rock band on DFA Records
Famous quotes containing the words free and/or energy:
“By intervening in the Vietnamese struggle the United States was attempting to fit its global strategies into a world of hillocks and hamlets, to reduce its majestic concerns for the containment of communism and the security of the Free World to a dimension where governments rose and fell as a result of arguments between two colonels’ wives.”
—Frances Fitzgerald (b. 1940)
“Since the beginning of time, three-quarters of the mental energy and of the lies inspired by vanity have been expended for their inferiors by people who are only abased by such expenditure. And Swann, who was easygoing and unaffected with a duchess, trembled at the thought of being scorned and put on airs when he was with a housemaid.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)