What a wonderful response! It reinvigorated me while in the midst of the
drudgery of grading exams.
Bob at PC
-----Original Message-----
From: Forum for Physics Educators [mailto:PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu] On
Behalf Of John Denker
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 1:44 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: independent of mechanism
I would vehemently recommend not ducking this question.
We should revel in it.
This is the glory of physics, that we can say things that are
independent of mechanism.
This isn't about momentum per se. This isn't about energy per se.
This is about things that are independent of mechanism.
It is a treeeeemendous achievement that we can know energy is conserved
without necessarily knowing how (in any particular situation) the
energy is going to be conserved.
-- Conservation of energy
-- Conservation of momentum
-- Paraconservation of entropy
-- Conservation of lepton number
-- Conservation of charge
-- Conservation of each nuclide separately in ordinary chemical reactions
-- Et cetera.