Changes

::::::: You take a narrow view of the significance of a "conservative field."  Independent physical attributes should remain path-independent as well for the field to be conservative.  In Newtonian mechanics and most other physical force fields, they do.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 15:41, 2 August 2010 (EDT)

::::::: You take a narrow view of the significance of a "conservative field."  Independent physical attributes should remain path-independent as well for the field to be conservative.  In Newtonian mechanics and most other physical force fields, they do.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 15:41, 2 August 2010 (EDT)

:::::::: A conservative field conserves exactly one quantity -- its potential, and the existence of such a potential is the ''definition'' of a conservative field.  Independent physical attributes might remain path-independent as well, but that's because they have their own conservative fields associated to them.  For example, electric potential is also path-independent, but that's because it comes from the electric field, which is conservative because of Coulomb's law.  Many other quantities (temperature, say) aren't path-independent when moving in a gravitational field, but that doesn't mean it's not a conservative field.

:::::::: By a conservative field, I mean a vector field on space for which there exists a scalar function V with the gradient of V given by that vector field.  This doesn't imply the path-independence of any physical quantities other than V itself.  If you this view as too narrow, can you tell me what you take to be the definition of a conservative field? --[[User:KyleT|KyleT]] 15:57, 2 August 2010 (EDT)

:::::::: Perhaps if you think my view here is too narrow, you could suggest the correct definition of a conservative field? --[[User:KyleT|KyleT]] 15:49, 2 August 2010 (EDT)