How far have we traveled? and Where are we going?
We began with acceleration, added few words to our physics vocabulary like displacement, velocity, power, rest and also took a peek at the concept of Field and Flux. We also transgressed into the topics on electricity and a bit on Planck;s constant, dealing with Energy.
A word on our overall approach.
If you have come this far and find the journey to be interesting, let us move forward. we shall have a discussion on mass, weight and force. These are quite confusing for most of us. let us make an attempt.
In a few more articles we will be discussing on collisions, moment, work and energy. To these we will be linking the concept of power. We are still dealing with one dimensional motion. Just to keep things simple.
With this lets us reflect upon the contents we learned and summarize on the concepts of equilibrium and conservation. These are 2 important tools of science.
Equilibrium: Force, Moment
Conservation: Mass, Momentum, Energy
Till this stage, we were dealing with a simple object like ball. We call it simple because, it is geometrically symmetric and considered to be made of the same material. We considered all of the mass of ball to be concentrated at a single point. Hence, we did not have to bother about shape and size of the object. We just needed to know what is the mass of the object?. Since we have assumed something, we shall give it a word particle and add it to our vocabulary.
But real world objects are need not be symmetric. so we need to get to the concept of center of mass, center of gravity and moment of inertia. We are entering into the regime of rigid bodies. For rigid bodies we will have to consider the shape and hence the mass distribution into account.
Subsequently, we shall get into the regime of 2 dimensional motions. The parabolic and circular motions.
Beyond this the road gets a bit rough but interesting and adventurous. We will be getting into the lands of potential energy, electricity, magnetism etc . The adventure requires a few tools. so, we will be taking a little detour into vectors, complex numbers and calculus.
During the adventures journey, we may have a few short breaks and get to know astronomy, sound, optics and heat.
If we have crossed this far, we will be in a position to enjoy the panorama of space-time curvatures and quantum mechanics.
"Journey is more important that the Destination"
Experience parabolic motion in 24 secondsWe began with acceleration, added few words to our physics vocabulary like displacement, velocity, power, rest and also took a peek at the concept of Field and Flux. We also transgressed into the topics on electricity and a bit on Planck;s constant, dealing with Energy.
A word on our overall approach.
Classical mechanics seems to be the foundation for comprehending subjects like electricity, magnetism, heat, sound etc. Why? All of these are a study of motion of a particle, rigid body, molecule/atom (heat and temperature), electron (electricity) or electron spin (magnetism).
A strong understanding of motion (translation, rotation, wave and quantum) are built on top of the concepts of displacement, velocity, force, field, energy and power. In the due course, i came to understand that "acceleration" is the key. once we comprehend acceleration, all other concepts seem to become simple. May be reason why apple-newton story became such a legend.
Though we have identified acceleration as the core concept and study of motion will enable us to comprehend other subjects, there is one more challenge. The challenge is that each individual approaches a subject from a different perspective and also every concept would require a different approach.
Keeping this in mind, our articles will have one or more of the following approaches.
- Start with an application and introduce the underlying physics vocabulary.
- Provide precise explanations. for ex. distance is used in geometry which considers only the length.Whereas displacement should take time interval into account. displacement as a shortest distance is not sufficient.
- Use evolution based approach for topics that are considered to be complex
If you have come this far and find the journey to be interesting, let us move forward. we shall have a discussion on mass, weight and force. These are quite confusing for most of us. let us make an attempt.
In a few more articles we will be discussing on collisions, moment, work and energy. To these we will be linking the concept of power. We are still dealing with one dimensional motion. Just to keep things simple.
With this lets us reflect upon the contents we learned and summarize on the concepts of equilibrium and conservation. These are 2 important tools of science.
Equilibrium: Force, Moment
Conservation: Mass, Momentum, Energy
Till this stage, we were dealing with a simple object like ball. We call it simple because, it is geometrically symmetric and considered to be made of the same material. We considered all of the mass of ball to be concentrated at a single point. Hence, we did not have to bother about shape and size of the object. We just needed to know what is the mass of the object?. Since we have assumed something, we shall give it a word particle and add it to our vocabulary.
But real world objects are need not be symmetric. so we need to get to the concept of center of mass, center of gravity and moment of inertia. We are entering into the regime of rigid bodies. For rigid bodies we will have to consider the shape and hence the mass distribution into account.
Subsequently, we shall get into the regime of 2 dimensional motions. The parabolic and circular motions.
Beyond this the road gets a bit rough but interesting and adventurous. We will be getting into the lands of potential energy, electricity, magnetism etc . The adventure requires a few tools. so, we will be taking a little detour into vectors, complex numbers and calculus.
During the adventures journey, we may have a few short breaks and get to know astronomy, sound, optics and heat.
If we have crossed this far, we will be in a position to enjoy the panorama of space-time curvatures and quantum mechanics.
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