Misnomers Mega-Thread

[Carl-Richard]

I started thinking about this with "energy production". You can't actually produce energy according to the first law of thermodynamics. "Energy production" is actually about converting less useful forms of energy (e.g. motion of atmospheric products like water, air, heat) to more useful forms (e.g. electricity).

Notions that you can create energy can lead to mistaken inventions like "energy producing machines" that seem like they're doing something clever that produces energy but actually it only ever loses energy (you put energy into the system using useful energy like electricity and you get out less due to friction, heat, inefficient transfer of energy in each step of the process). You only get out what you put into it (and usually less, as again, it escapes outside the system you have defined as useful).