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The ancient Greek understanding of physics was limited to the statics of simple machines (the balance of forces), and did not include dynamics or the concept of work. During the Renaissance the dynamics of the Mechanical Powers, as the simple machines were called, began to be studied from the standpoint of how far they could lift a load, in addition to the force they could apply, leading ...
There are many types of conjugate variables, depending on the type of work a certain system is doing (or is being subjected to). Examples of canonically conjugate variables include the following: Time and frequency : the longer a musical note is sustained, the more precisely we know its frequency, but it spans a longer duration and is thus a ...
Pair production often refers specifically to a photon creating an electron–positron pair near a nucleus. As energy must be conserved, for pair production to occur, the incoming energy of the photon must be above a threshold of at least the total rest mass energy of the two particles created. (As the electron is the lightest, hence, lowest ...
By the principle of minimum energy, there are a number of other state functions which may be defined which have the dimensions of energy and which are minimized according to the second law under certain conditions other than constant entropy. These are called thermodynamic potentials. For each such potential, the relevant fundamental equation ...
Power in mechanical systems is the combination of forces and movement. In particular, power is the product of a force on an object and the object's velocity, or the product of a torque on a shaft and the shaft's angular velocity. Mechanical power is also described as the time derivative of work.
The work done on the system is defined and measured by changes in mechanical or quasi-mechanical variables external to the system. Physically, adiabatic transfer of energy as work requires the existence of adiabatic enclosures. For instance, in Joule's experiment, the initial system is a tank of water with a paddle wheel inside.
The pair planned that Joule would admit von Mayer's priority for the idea of the mechanical equivalent but to claim that experimental verification rested with Joule. Thomson's associates, co-workers and relatives such as William John Macquorn Rankine , James Thomson , James Clerk Maxwell , and Peter Guthrie Tait joined to champion Joule's cause.
A unit of electrical energy, particularly for utility bills, is the kilowatt-hour (kWh); [3] one kilowatt-hour is equivalent to 3.6 megajoules. Electricity usage is often given in units of kilowatt-hours per year or other periods. [4] This is a measurement of average power consumption, meaning the average rate at which energy is transferred ...