Re: CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca>]

> I can not resist showing you, Leigh, that you too can be inconsistent.
> I am reading everything you wrote again and here what I see.
>
> Sunday morning:
>
> > Let us examine the therm "thermal energy". This term is not in my
> > dictionary, nor should it be in that of any physics teacher. It is
> > a source of confusion .... and a barrier to conceptual grasp.
>
> Monday afternoon: your formulation of the first law:
>
> > The change in thermal energy of a system is a sum of the heat that
> > flows into it and that part of the work that is done on it that does
> > not appear as a change in the kinetic energy of the center of mass
> > of the system.
>
> Nobody is perfect, right? Perhaps you would not mind commenting on the
> "how slow is slow enough" question formulated below.

Ludwik, if you will be so kind as to reexamine what I said Monday you
will find that I asked if you would be satisfied with that formulation
of the first law. That was a rhetorical question; no one could be
satisfied with that statement, for heaven's sake!

I'm sure that many others understood my intent, but you and I are not
communicating, as this note demonstrates very clearly. I'm sorry we
can't, but we really shouldn't try to do so on this topic. It upsets me.

Leigh