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Re: PHYS-L Digest - 1 Jan 2004 to 2 Jan 2004 (#2004-2)

I was delighted to see Casimir's essay on Broken English. In the same spirit
I am sending a physical proof of the conservative nature of the French
Revolution.

Ronald Newburgh

A Physical Analysis of the French Revolution

Ronald Newburegh

It is a little known fact, overlooked by most professional historians, that
the French revolution was a conservative not a radical phenomenon. The
failure of the historians to recognise this is a consequence of their
ignorance of the principles of physics. Let me explain.

Louis XV, the successor of Louis le Grand, once observed, "après moi le
déluge". He was, of course, prescient. Just 15 years after his death the
Bastille fell and Europe was in turmoil until Waterloo in 1815.

Let us examine Louis' remark with the tools of a physicist. We may isolate
the element "délu" from this statement, an element that we may write as del U
or grad U. Now, as many authors have written (see, for example, Goldstein
1), the curl of a conservative force F is zero. Since the curl of a gradient
always vanishes, the force may be written as the gradient of a scalar
potential U or

(1) F = - del U q.e.d.

We conclude that the French revolution must be considered as a conservative
phenomenon.

Reference

1. Goldstein H 1951 Classical Mechanics (Cambridge, MA:Addison-Wesley Press)



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Subject: PHYS-L Digest - 1 Jan 2004 to 2 Jan 2004 (#2004-2)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 02:00:03 -0700
From: Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV@LISTS.NAU.EDU>
Reply-To: Forum for Physics Educators <PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU>
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There is one message totalling 20 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

1. Broken English:

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Subject: Broken English:
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 20:31:54 -0500
From: Ludwik Kowalski <kowalskil@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>

I know that our site is for physics topics only.
The piece at this URL:

http://blake.montclair.edu/~kowalskil/casimir.html

is not about physics, but the author was a
physicist. The traffic is low and I can not resist
sharing this fun essay on the English language.
Enjoy it. Happy New Year to all.
Ludwik Kowalski