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Heat- does it have potential?

And yes I meant that little pun.

In search of something deeper discussed by a famous professor of mine who has a force named after him (FKnorr), I found out nothing that I wanted to on heat. However, I did find out something very fundamental about E=mc^(2).

It has a parent equation that I thought be quite awesome. E_K=mc^2 (1/√(1-(v/c)^2 )-1). What I found out is very useful to something that I am learning about kinetic and potential energy. The equation E_k=∫F*dx=∫v*dp=1/2 mv^2 is what the light equation reduces to when I realized something awesome that inspired this post. E=mc^(2) is the energy at rest (potential) rather than kinetic. Basically this caused me to re-conceptualize my idea of how and what the speed of light really was. It is hard for me to imagine light traveling the speed of light at all times yet at one very instant it is at rest long enough to amount potential energy.

The reason I even bring light into this whole idea is I made an early assumption that I’m not convinced is completely accurate. I assumed that light would produce enough heat that it would become kinetic and affect an object in potential position. I’m not saying that light can move an object, rather what I just said applied to light and light only not light on other objects. What I forgot in all of this was the process of chemiluminescence which is one situation (among many i’m sure) that has light that does not produce heat. However my misconception is not so far off because in essence what I found out (well not really found out about but you get the point) thermal heat is the heat that could be applied to and in essence effect an object and how a force can act on it.

Aside from all of this rambling the point I am making with strong declaration is that heat is both potential and kinetic energy all in one. And to really stir things up heat can produce light in the form of radiation. And if heat can produce light and cause an object to slow down then can light produce enough heat to slow down and object? Chew upon that for a moment.