- #36
sophiecentaur
Science Advisor
Gold Member
- 28,956
- 6,897
I'm fine with that but that Relativistic Caveat should be writ large and clear for the benefit of all snooker players and others.
sophiecentaur said:Can you think of an example of such a system and how it could be of interest in Physics?
But if you regard the change in direction as being due to a photon interaction you're back in business. The deviated particle will have launched its own photon i.e. perturbed the Field.
Delta Kilo said:They are indeed the same but in different dimensions :)
Four-momentum 4-vector can be loosely interpreted as a "rate of flow of mass through 4D space-time" with respect to its own "proper time". Thus momentum (p1,p2,p3) becomes a flow of mass through space and the energy term p0 is a "flow of mass through time". Kinetic energy turns out to be Lorentz factor correction to the total relativistic energy in the limit v<<c.
PS: Relativistic Caveat: This is relativistic treatment of momentum. There is no such obvious connection between momentum and KE in Newtonian physics.
"Material Object"? When does anything hit one of those? It's all fields or photons, depending on what's of interest at the time. When a charge accelerates, it radiates EM as a photon / photons, doesn't it? That photon will, eventually, effect the system producing the original field. Where is the difference between that and what you refer to as a particle particle interaction? Afaics, it's only a matter of relative distance.Studiot said:And if you don't?
I have been consistently dealing classically with Hassan's query.
Classically momentum is a vector so yes when a beta particle undergoes a change of direction (but not magnitude) due to its interaction with a magnetic field edit: I am considering this in terms of force (the Lorenz force) = rate of change of momentum, not particle exchange.
Yes in modern terms (and strangely in ancient science and religion too) anything any particle does anywhere in the universe affects all other particles in the universe to some extent or other.
But in classical terms we isolate a section of the universe and consider what happens within that microcosm.
That is what I understand Hassan's question to mean viz
Can momentum in a stream of beta particles be changed without the beta particles bumping into themselves or any other material object.
To which the answer is an unequivocal classical yes.
No, I wouldn't call that a good analogy. A bullet "hits you harder" than an ocean liner, but an ocean liner has vastly more momentum. A better analogy would be "if you are trapped in front of a wall, momentum is how much will an object will crush you.".phinds said:Yeah, momentum is how hard something hits you ... that's not a bad way to think of it.
If it's moving faster, it hits you harder. If it's heavier, it hits you harder. If it's both heavier and faster, you really should get out of the way.
You could say the same thing about velocity.Islam Hassan said:Is it correct to say that momentum is of no use unless we are talking about collisions of a sort?
Can momentum have any useful applications in a system where objects/particles move but are not liable to collide/interact at all? Need it be defined in the first place in such a system?
IH
Different units for time and space are there for our convenience and historical reason. c is just a conversion factor between units, you'll get the same mess if you measure X in feet and Y in meters. But the dead giveaway is E and p get mixed up during boosts, for example in one coordinate system you see an object with energy E and momentum p=(px,py,pz), but when you look at the same object from another coordinate system, moving with velocity v along x direction, you see linear combinations of those:Dadface said:Where in your references does it state or imply that they(energy and momentum)"are indeed the same"? Early on in the Wiki article it is given that Po=E/c where P and E are different and with different units.
Not really. Its most important feature, namely momentum conservation law, does not follow from p=mv. Momentum survives in places where the both mass and velocity go south, like momentum of a photon. In fact, Newton mechanics is derived from conservation laws and not the other way around.sophiecentaur said:No variable is much use except to describe some sort of relationship between two things.
Momentum, like Electrical Resistance, is one of those quantities that involve two other, more familiar, quantities. People wast a lot of time trying to put them into 'more simple' terms: eg "Resistance is how hard you have to try to push a current blah blah".
James_Harford said:The concepts are different, but have a pretty symmetry when thus described.
Delta Kilo said:Newton mechanics is derived from conservation laws and not the other way around.
.
James_Harford said:One way to intuitively disentangle momentum from energy of motion is to consider a moving mass (e.g. vehicle) brought to a stop by a constant force (e.g. brakes). Then time to stop "measures" momentum, and distance to stop "measures" energy.
More specifically, for a given force, different masses with the same momentum take the same time to stop. Different masses with the same energy take the same distance to stop. The concepts are different, but have a pretty symmetry when thus described.
sophiecentaur said:That is a good, down-to-earth answer and I'm sure it's the sort of thing the original questioner was after. I hope he's still with us and can read it.
Delta Kilo said:This just goes to show that E and px,py,px are not independent quantities but components of the same thing.
Momentum is the massive component of the kinetic energy of a body when relative motion is considered
I was answering specific question. And I clarified it as "same but in different dimensions". And I did add Relativistic Caveat as requested, didn't I?Dadface said:In some contexts "not independant but components of the same thing" perhaps but they are not the same.Momentum is momentum and energy is energy.
I understand the need to keep things simple, but I'm against dumbing them down. For, example this "down-to-earth" explanation looks sort-of-alright. But it only works in a very specific case where the force is constant and is known in advance. This case is in fact very rare as we don't usually know the forces and they tend not to stay constant. The example with vehicle is in fact incorrect because braking force depends on the weight of the car, so if you try measuring momentum of the car with the same initial speed but different loads you will not get expected results.Dadface said:Please read and take into account sophiecentaurs post 47 above.
Delta Kilo said:I understand the need to keep things simple, but I'm against dumbing them down. For, example this "down-to-earth" explanation looks sort-of-alright. But it only works in a very specific case where the force is constant and is known in advance. This case is in fact very rare...
It is not really "dumbed down" if it is correct in its domain. Nor is it just a matter of keeping things simple, but of starting out simple if it can be properly related to everyday experience, and then elaborating step by step upon that insight.
For example, since the intuitive description happens to occur along a line, it can be formulated as (1) Δp=FΔt and (2) ΔE = FΔx, where F is constant. Since Δt is any nonzero value. This includes as a special case,
(1) dp = Fdt
(2) dE = Fdx.
which answers your first objection, and so on...