Section 4-1 Energy and Living Things Tools A B Energy the ability to cause matter to move or change Kinetic Energy the energy an object has because of its motion Potential Energy the energy an object has because of its position thermodynamics the study of energy transformations The First Law of Thermodynamics energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another entropy the amount of disorder in a system the Second Law of Thermodynamics Disorder in the universe constantly increases; in a closed system, energy tends to be converted to less organized forms Photosynthesis the process that converts light energy to chemical energy chemiosynthesis the process that converts inorganic chemical energy to organic energy autotrophs Organisms that harvest energy from either sunlight or chemicals heterotrophs organisms that cannot harvest energy directly from sunlight or inorganic molecules, but instead consume food cellular respiration a series of chemical reactions that converts energy stored in food to a more useful form oxidation the loss of an electron reduction the gain of an electron oxidation-reduction reaction chemical reactions that pass electrons frome one atom or molecule to another