I used to think I was in both camps in this battle but now I'm not so sure.
I tend to see everything in terms of Newton's 2nd law. Work is required to
increase (or decrease) kinetic energy and, depending on the scale, the
kinetic energy can be interpreted in terms of internal energy and the
possible work can be interpreted as a "potential".
Is this point of view consistent with the "energy does not flow" camp?
My problem is that such language seems to miss a very valuable relationship,
i.e., the local conservation law (roughly that the increase in energy is
exactly equal to a decrease of something else somewhere else, be it
"potential" or kinetic energy). It is for this reason that I use the word
"transfer" to describe non-material things (like energy and momentum). I
see it as a short-hand way of emphasizing the "conservation" nature.
Is this point of view consistent with the "energy does flow" camp?
Personally, I think physics is not about what "really" happens but rather
about what we can measure. So, whether it really flows or not is
unimportant compared to the predictions we can make. I'm still unclear,
though, which way is pedagogically advantageous. I'd appreciate some
guidelines in this regard.
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| Robert Cohen Department of Physics |
| East Stroudsburg University |
| rcohen@po-box.esu.edu East Stroudsburg, PA 18301 |
| http://www.esu.edu/~bbq/ (570) 422-3428 |
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