Changes

Jump to navigation Jump to search
1,269 bytes added ,  03:45, June 24, 2009
no edit summary
Line 34: Line 34:  
==Vandalism?==
 
==Vandalism?==
 
What was wrong with Quetzalcoatl's contributions to this page?  There were a couple things I'd change, and it's worth discussing whether Islamic physics during the Middle Ages merits mention here, but the edits were generally sensible and certainly looked well-intentioned... --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 18:45, 21 June 2009 (EDT)
 
What was wrong with Quetzalcoatl's contributions to this page?  There were a couple things I'd change, and it's worth discussing whether Islamic physics during the Middle Ages merits mention here, but the edits were generally sensible and certainly looked well-intentioned... --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 18:45, 21 June 2009 (EDT)
 +
 +
== Explanation of changes in the definitions ==
 +
Mechanics: Changed from "the study of forces acting on bodies " to "The study of the motion of bodies". I did this because studing the forces on bodies is just one way to study the motion. There are other ways, for example using conservation of energiy. There are alternative formulations of classical mechanics, namely lagrangian and hamiltonean dynamics, that do not use the concept of force at all, yet they deal with the motion of the bodies.
 +
 +
Thermodynamics: It originally said: "the study of heat and entropy". In fact, thermodynamics is basically the study of energy transformations. Energy is basically from two tipes: Work ("useful" energy) and Heat ("Useless" energy). That is why I changed the definition to "The study of work, energy and its transformations". Entropy is a concept created to explain the observation that the dissorder of the universe always increase. In other terms, that as time passes, more energy is in the form of heat and less energy in the form of work. Entropy does not transform, so I would not put "entropy and its transformations"
 +
 +
Relativity: It stated that it is a form of mechanics, while in reality it is a new framework for the whole of physical theories, not just mechanics.
SkipCaptcha
67

edits

Navigation menu