Suppose we take the three Newton’s Laws as axioms.
Existence of inertial reference frames
F = ma
F(A on B) = -F(B on A)
Also suppose also we are considering purely classical mechanical processes on point particles (no heat transfer, etc.).
It is clear to me that the conservation of momentum...
I'm trying to figure out what the physical meaning of divergence is for a vector field.
My textbook offered the following example: if v = <u, v, w> represents the velocity field of a fluid flow, then div(v) evaluated at P = (x, y, z) represents the net rate of the change of mass of the fluid...
I have seen in a number of thermodynamics lectures that the entropy change of a system as it falls approximately isothermally from some height h to the ground is: ΔS = mgh/T
(The proof basically has you conceive of a reversible process between the same two states where some upwards force acts...
I was following along in my Thermodynamic textbook and began playing with some definitions. In the following formulation, I somehow managed to prove (obviously incorrectly) that dq = TdS for even irreversible processes. I was hoping someone could point out where in the proof I'm going wrong...
This is a purely conceptual question that I’m having trouble understanding.
From what I understand, anytime an energy transfer takes place as work, you can say that something has done work on something else. For example, if the gas in a cylinder with a piston on it pushes back the atmosphere...
Is there such a thing as a total "partial" derivative?
Total Derivative as I've Been Taught
From my understanding, if we have a function s = f(x, y) where the two arguments x and y are related by another function y = g(x), then there is a great deal of difference between ds/dx and ∂s/∂x.
∂s/∂x...
Homework Statement
So for an experiment, we injected a small volume of fluid into a capillary (76 micrometer diameter) through a pressure difference and I'm trying to calculate exactly how much was injected.
diameter of capillary = 76e-6 m
height one end was raised above the other = 5.334 cm...