The final explanation to why kinetic energy is proportional to velocity squared

[Driftwood1]

Because the units wouldn't work out otherwise. When I was taking freshman physics that is what my professor pounded into our heads the first week or two: "always check the units". Kinetic energy couldn't possibly be anything other than kmv² where k is some unitless constant.

that was the point of my post - dimensional analysis

if the velocity was raised to any other power except for 2 the formula collapses into the abyss of invalidness - where all the dead ends are

All formulae must pass the dimensional consistency test

Even the weird ones from quantum mechanics

 

[ifmihai]

I'm no physicist per se, but I find this subject very interesting.
I am too one of those who are inclined to revise and better understand the basics first, then go into more complicated matters.
All people here seem to be quite advanced in the mathematics of physics which I kept avoiding all the time :)

When reading this thread, an image kept popping up in my head. The image of getting away from a balance point.
Maybe we require more force to accelerate an object from 50 mph to 100 mph (than from 0 to 50) because it's much further from the balance point, and another natural force drags the object backwards (where backwards is opposite to speeding up).
Like gravity when we go upwards.
Maybe the object needs more force because the balancing force is growing rapidly.
Maybe we need to apply then more force, to cope with the backwards balancing force.

An interesting logical result (for me at least), is that the object and everything else must be connected somehow. Because forcing a separated object doesn't affect anything else but itself => there would be no need for speed squared in the formula.

That's all I have to say for now

 

[aleiton]

We all know from reality that a car has much more than a double damage when it crashes at 100 km/h instead of 50 Km/h. So speed must be considered more than first power. Let's choose second power: it works! So why don't accept it?

 

[ifmihai]

:)
what you say it's like:
if you found cause(n-1), why bother to know cause(n-2) ?

why did you bother to find cause(n-1) in the first place?

 

[aleiton]

Just wanted to say it cannot be first power because not enough.
I bother about the topic, I'm still thinking about it and haven't accepted it, to be honest.
Sometimes when mathematics goes too far I loose the touch of reality. It's my limit.
Alberto

 

[jtbell]

Hehe, I give this thread the zombie "night of the living thread" award. It first died in 2005, came back to life for a day in 2008 and promptly died again, and then came back to life again in 2010 where it has been terrorizing the villagers for a couple of weeks now!

It's time to use the wooden stake. Whack! Whack! Whack!