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Re: [Phys-l] ? passive force of constraint



Quoting John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>:

Let me explain why I needed clarification as to where list members
were coming from. Possibly my first exposure to the active/passive
business was in Arons, _Teaching Introductory Physics_. I quote
from page 76:
"... it turns out to be helpful for students to distinguish
between two classes of forces, designated as 'active' and 'passive,'
respectively."


In a sense, there is still no "intelligent design" on terminology, but active force could have "evolved" from impressed force, living force or innate force etc. Active force could refer to the "impressed force" which is an *action* exerted upon a body, in order to change its state, either of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line. (We can distinguish action and reaction.)

On the other hand, passive force could refer to resistive force, drag force, or
constraint force etc. It should be a good practice to distinguish the force to be either active force or passive force, driving force or resistive force etc. Just like we have active device/element and passive device/element in electric circuits etc... or even active gravitational mass and passive gravitational mass...

Alphonsus