Recent content by jmsmith

Thanks for the reply. I am a bit confused by the "of" v. "in" distinction though. What about a wave on a rope? Why is a wave on a rope a wave "in" the rope, but an electromagnetic wave is a wave "of" the electromagnetic field? But you did answer my question perfectly on a practical...

Thank you for keeping up the replies Dr.D. I think that we generally have the same "sense" of mechanical energy. However, I don't think that I could give a useful and accurate definition of mechanical energy to student. A side question: What kind of energy do machines have as we make them...

I think this is where I have the problem: Mechanical energy = kinetic energy + potential energy. However, we do not include certain forms of kinetic energy (such as thermal energy) or potential energy (such as chemical energy) in the equation. This seems to be inconsistent to me. What do you...

Hi, This may ultimately be an opinion question: When thinking about electromagnetic waves semi-classically, how appropriate is it to describe the waves as propagating through an electromagnetic field? If it is appropriate, how appropriate is it to describe the electromagnetic field as a...

One answer inspires many more questions. I would greatly appreciate any good answers, but understand that people are busy: I re-work the equation to basically mean that temperature is proportional to the rate of change in energy with entropy. How correct is this? How does this equation...

But if temperature is proportional to kinetic energy, then what about the kinetic energy of those electrons? What about conductors (where electrons do not really "orbit" atoms)? Also, what prevents the kinetic energy of the electrons in a conductor from passing to my hands from that conductor?

In school I was always taught that temperature is proportional to the average kinetic energy of the individual particles in that object. However, I recently encountered a brief statement in a 1999 issue of The Physics Teacher that this is only really the case for ideal gases. Here is the quote...

Hello, What would be a good definition of mechanical energy? I currently encounter the following two: 1) "Mechanical energy: energy that is mechanical" 2) "Mechanical energy: the sum of kinetic energy and potential energy." I am disatisfied with the first definition due to the obvious...

I have a technical question regarding the definition of gravitational potential energy: How correct is it to discuss/define the gravitational potential energy of object A without regard for the other bodies that are exerting a gravitational force on object A? I find this kind of thing in...