Does an object ever lack energy altogether?

Question

Son's science question--we have covered the entire chapter and did not find the answer to this question

Answer 1

The universe is soaked in the fossil microwave background radiation.
An object with zero energy would have to be at absolute zero, and getting the heat out is getting harder and harder the closer one gets to the absolute zero so... no.

Answer 2

Under physics energy is defined as kinetics, so if the object had no kinetic energy(motion), then it will lack energy. This only occurs at absolute 0 or 0 degrees kelvin when an object's atoms are at a stand still. The uncertainty principle states that an atom's electrons cannot be pinpointed with a velocity and location simultaneously. Such is indeed always true, the electrons will be moving so depending on your son's level of schooling, they might be vague and state that at absolute 0 there is no energy but in a higher course level they explain that electron movement, eventhough small, is still energy as such. If we take a subatomic particle in a vacuum at absolute 0 temperature, then we can assume that it has no energy but by Einstein's E=mc^2 we can see that energy and mass are interconvertible so it is still questionable as to whether the particle has energy since it obviously has mass. Now if we assume a non-existent hypothetical particle with 0 mass in absolute 0 degrees kelvin in a vacuum we can say it has no energy but obviously it does not exist so it is a null hypothesis.

All in all we can successfully conclude that anything always has energy.

Answer 3

Only at Absolute Zero Temperature...(If you can imagine a temperature of -273.15°C known as Zero Degrees Absolute)....Which has almost, but not quite been attained by Scientists.
Even at slightly above that temperature, some molecular motion is in the substance and therefore, it does contain some energy.

Answer 4

Energy equals mass times the speed of light square. So anything that has mass has the potential for energy.

Answer 5

No object can lack energy.

Answer 6

Dude, E=mc^2

each kilogram of an object has 90000000000m/s of energy.

so all objects have at least some energy, otherwise it wouldn't have mass.

Answer 7

dEdT >= hbar/2

So, that means no. Even at absolute zero (0K, -459.67F, -273.15C) there will still be energy based purely on vibrational uncertainty of the atoms... more basically, even a 0K atom has some movement within its deBroglie wavelength.

Answer 8

"Objects" are another form of energy... just not the one we are all used to... To my knowledge, you can't detect any kind of energy unless you search for a particle(or the effect it has on other particles, i.e. "objects")... Correct me if I’m wrong.

Answer 9

I would assume that this would violate Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, so I would say no.