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From: ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.research
Subject: Energy - the "hot potato"?
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2024 18:25:10 PDT
Organization: Stefan Ram
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  . Here's a quotation from "Quora":

|The vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field is just the
|value that we would "expect" it to have when it is in its
|vacuum state, which is the state of lowest energy. It turns
|out that it is a general law of nature that physical systems
|always "want" to be in the state of lowest possible energy.
|The allowed values for the energy are determined by the
|system's potential energy function. In the case of the Higgs
|field, the potential function looks (more or less) like this

  . My question is not about Higgs fields, but I'd like to focus
  on this part:

|It turns out that it is a general law of nature that physical
|systems always "want" to be in the state of lowest possible
|energy.

  . "Want" is not a very appropriate term in physics. But

  - is there really such a law? And if so, 

  - how can one interpret this law in the way that the system
    "wants" to be in the state of the lowest possible energy?

  - If a system tries to get into a state of lowest energy,
    the only place it can give its energy to is another system,
    which also wants to get into a state of lowest energy . . .
    So it seems that the two systems are in a fight, each one
    trying to force its energy upon the other system then.
    What determines which system wins this fight?