Question

What physically causes energy to make subatomic particles move?

I know energy causes particles to move "kinetic energy" and the measure of kinetic energy is particles jiggling and colliding with one another giving temperature. But what physically causes "energy" to be able to move the partices? Which gives heat.

Answer 1

Energy is a description of motion, not a cause of it. If a baseball or an atom is in motion, it has a kinetic energy that can be calculated given its mass and velocity (it's defined as 1/2 * mass * velocity^2). But one wouldn't say that the baseball's or the atom's kinetic energy "cause" them to move. The thing that causes a baseball to be in motion is getting hit by a bat; the thing that causes atoms to move is that they are constantly getting hit by other moving atoms.

"Heat energy" is basically just another name for the *kinetic* energy of the atoms and molecules that make up matter jiggling around.

We don't yet have a complete understanding of what causes motion, although lots of existing theories are extremely good at approximating motion of particles to a very good accuracy. Most theories require a "singularity" at the beginning of time, or more commonly, "The Big Bang".
If you trace all the equations of motion back to the big bang, then... well there are different theories of what caused the big bang. One of the most common views is God. There is the multiverse theory. There are also lots of other theories. If you now want to ask what caused the very first thing - without cause - then maybe you are talking about God or whatnot - but that is more of a philosophical discussion than a scientific one.

But anyway, energy isn't an an actual little piece of electric bolt that makes things "fired up"* or some handwavy bull, the term "energy" itself is just a useful quantity from equations of motion.