Newton's law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. If that's the case then, how can electricity be created?
xfwayne said:Newton's law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. If that's the case then, how can electricity be created?
Deamiter said:Um... kurabrhm, did you read any of our responses before you posted? The only thing you've managed to illustrate is that you don't understand energy!
Energy is most definately NOT a potential. It's like it's other form, matter, in that it CANNOT just be created. It is also quite IMPOSSIBLE to destroy energy! Try taking the energy output of an atomic bomb and 'destroying' it so that the bomb has no effect on the city... If it WERE possible, you'd CERTAINLY get a nobel prize for showing it!
Furthermore, the conclusions you draw from your flawed arguments don't logically follow from the arguments you presented! There would be a logical argument for moral relitavism if energy were merely a potential? Huh?
Then again, maybe you were joking... Either way, don't mislead innocent civilians about science as they're often confused enough as it is!
I realize thermodynamics is the key to the conservation laws, however I just showing, using kinetic energy as an example (I apologize for the use of the word therefore, I didn't mean to equate the two). The previous post had said that Newton's laws had nothing to do with conservation of energy, I was just showing that his laws of motion and the conservation of energy are connected, in that energy can't simply disappear or appear, and so they do have something to do with each other.ThePhoenix said:What? Talk about putting the cart in front of the horse. The principles of Newton's laws of conservation descend directly from the laws of thermodynamics. And your statement of them is wrong too, as "Kinetic energy" tends to just go away. Kick a ball and watch it loose all of it's kinetic energy pretty quickly.
Um, ok. I kinda thought that a law stated as:Amalthea said:This thread is terrible. Newton's laws have not only nothing to do with conservation laws neither does thermodynamics. I recommend all of you to right away enroll in a graduate physics curriculum.
Might just have something to do with Conservation of energy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics* 1st Law: Conservation of energy. This is a fundamental principle of mechanics, and more generally of physics. In thermodynamics, it is used to give a precise definition of heat. It is stated as follows:
The work exchanged in an adiabatic process depends only on the initial and the final state and not on the details of the process.
or
The heat flowing into a system equals the increase in internal energy of the system minus the work done by the system.
Observation from experiment is exactly what scientific theories are based on. I'm sorry if you like symmetries in spacetime, but the fact of the matter is that the law that states that is the first law of thermodynamics. The why of the first law is interesting, cool, and theoretical. I'm sorry, but the first law of thermodynamics works.Amalthea said:Thermodynamics is technically an observation from experiment. It is not fundamental in and of itself. Newton's laws of motion have nothing to do with energy conservation directly.
Yes, and the equations probably give computers headaches. But it's a group of variables. An ounce of observation is worth more then a ton of theory.Energy conservation (from which you can derive thermodynamics as measured by experiment) is a consequence of symmetries in spacetime. Just like angular momentum conservation is a consequence of the rotational symmetry of space. Symmetries in nature imply an associated conservation law via a theorem of theroretical physics called Noethers theorem.
A huge surprise... I am an engineer. And all of those beautiful equations have to be based on experiment for them to have real-world application. Therefore if an experiment discovered that a previous experiment that proved part of the prepositions used by Noether in his theorum were incorrect a different explaination would have to be found. Pure math is nice, but in the end it's exactly as good as the engineer who set up the equipment for the experiment.Amalthea said:A more fundamental property of space is it's symmetries than an experimental result in a lab. The first law of thermodynamics is a statement of energy conservation from experiment. But if you break the symmetries of spacetime then it would not apply and your experiment would give a different result. This would be the case say near a singularity where you lose the symmetry in question.
You are thinking like an engineer and not a physicist. Noether's theorem is a mathematical statement that is proven.Like?Conservation of energy probably may not apply in certain situations and even if some other conservation law can be formulated in the extreme situations where standard thermodynamics breaks down then it wont take the same form.
But if a thousand theories cannot explain that observation then each and every one of them is wrong.An ounce of observation is only worth something in the regime you perform the experiment.Oh I'm sure they explain conservation with Noether's theorum. But it's based in the laws of thermodynamics, the experimental results that allowed him to formulate his theorum.I advise you, if you don't believe me, to check out the textbooks for a graduate curriculum in theoretical physics.
I could tell, and no offence but engineers seem to often not understand physics.FromTheAshes said:A huge surprise... I am an engineer.
Again an engineer speaking. Physics is more than real world experiment. By the way Emmy Noether was a woman!And all of those beautiful equations have to be based on experiment for them to have real-world application. Therefore if an experiment discovered that a previous experiment that proved part of the prepositions used by Noether in his theorum were incorrect a different explaination would have to be found. Pure math is nice, but in the end it's exactly as good as the engineer who set up the equipment for the experiment.
Think where a flat spacetime breaks down. On the global cosmological scale there are problems formulating energy conservation and near the Big Bang singularity. The 2nd Law has a similar problem as you cannot define the arrow of time that synopsises the 2nd Law of thermodynamics.Like?
Absolutely incorrect. The laws of thermodynamics originally were based on experiment. See James Joules work for instance.Oh I'm sure they explain conservation with Noether's theorum. But it's based in the laws of thermodynamics, the experimental results that allowed him to formulate his theorum.