Recent content by cosmic onion

My word nothing like a dose of salt. I'm going to put this monkey to bed this year.

I graduated 22 years ago in Electrical Electronic Engineering. I haven't sat an exam since. The fact that I graduated at all I think was a minor miracle (I suffered terribly from exam stress - I only scrapped through due to my project and dissertation work being quote ' refreshingly good ')...

I like the description by Lev Okun a great theoretical physicist, 'ENERGY IS THE CAPACITY TO CAUSE MOVEMENT' ,this is the most basic definition that I agree with. But after thinking the matter through I ended up appreciating that energy is force acting over a distance. You could loosely say...

Great responses. I am marked to go by the idea that Newton was such a towering figure that some were unwilling to accept anything that went against his work. Still, what a guy.

Had time to think this over. I have found a quote from an eminent physicist that I am happy with regarding energy. Russian physicist Lev Okun says ' the more basic a physical notion is the more difficult it is to describe in words . For energy the best we can do is say IT IS THE CAPACITY TO...

I have never been happy with the word genius. I always thought that genius is like entrepreneur a person who happens to be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing in the right way with the right support and motivation. When all these things come together then new discoveries...

Fantastic, so you do get a light boom.

Thank you for this insight. Only started to learn the subject. Find it very interesting and it also seems to have an interesting past.

I never presume I'm the first person to think of anything. But it is the first time I have thought about this. Forum is excellent. The best thing I have learned so far is that I still have lots to learn.

Thanks for the reply . Yes that's exactly the derivation I was thinking about. So your saying this derivation is not general as it pertains to this particular problem as opposed to the accepted lag range derivation that pertains to all variational problems of this type. ? And that's the...

But wasnt all of physics at one time just personal theories till proven and then accepted ? Maybe I'm going about physics the wrong way. I suppose it makes sense otherwise PF would spend all its time debunking when time could be better spent answering real questions. I will have read of the...

Eek. Looks like I still have lots to learn. I though physics was about coming up with your own definitions and theories and giving the world an opportunity to debunk them. Of course if the whole of the rest of the population disagreed with you and you still insisted you were right then that...

What is wrong with the simple localised geometric derivation of the Euler Lagrange equation. As opposed to the standard derivation that Lagrange provided. Sorry I haven't mastered writing mathematically using latex. I will have a look at this over the next few days. More clarification. I...

We had to wait for Joule to tell us by experiment that Leibniz was correct ?

I've never contemplated the awswer in those terms. Very interesting