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Classical mechanics was traditionally divided into three main branches. Statics is the branch of classical mechanics that is concerned with the analysis of force and torque acting on a physical system that does not experience an acceleration, but rather is in equilibrium with its environment. [3]
Classical mechanics is a model of the physics of forces acting upon bodies; includes sub-fields to describe the behaviors of solids, gases, and fluids. It is often referred to as "Newtonian mechanics" after Isaac Newton and his laws of motion. It also includes the classical approach as given by Hamiltonian and Lagrange methods. It deals with ...
In general relativity, the gravitational force of Newtonian mechanics is reimagined as curvature of spacetime. A curved path like an orbit, attributed to a gravitational force in Newtonian mechanics, is not the result of a force deflecting a body from an ideal straight-line path, but rather the body's attempt to fall freely through a background ...
(In Newtonian mechanics, τ ≡ t, the coordinate time). In both Newtonian mechanics and special relativity, space and then spacetime are assumed to be flat, and we can construct a global Cartesian coordinate system. In general relativity, these restrictions on the shape of spacetime and on the coordinate system to be used are lost.
Force plays an important role in classical mechanics. The concept of force is central to all three of Newton's laws of motion . Types of forces often encountered in classical mechanics include elastic , frictional , contact or "normal" forces , and gravitational .
In physics, action is a scalar quantity that describes how the balance of kinetic versus potential energy of a physical system changes with trajectory. Action is significant because it is an input to the principle of stationary action, an approach to classical mechanics that is simpler for multiple objects. [1]
Within the realm of Newtonian mechanics, an inertial frame of reference, or inertial reference frame, is one in which Newton's first law of motion is valid. [17] However, the principle of special relativity generalizes the notion of an inertial frame to include all physical laws, not simply Newton's first law.
In physics, mechanics is the study of objects, their interaction, and motion; classical mechanics is mechanics limited to non-relativistic and non-quantum approximations. . Most of the techniques of classical mechanics were developed before 1900 so the term classical mechanics refers to that historical era as well as the approximati