Re: [Phys-L] ? FCI --> momentum flow

[Jeffrey Schnick <JSchnick@Anselm.Edu>]

I think that to treat the momentum flow as the flow of scalar components of momentum is a misguided attempt to simplify the concept.  Momentum is a vector quantity and a vector is more than a set of three numbers.  (See http://www.phys-l.org/archives/2013/10_2013/msg00162.html.)  I ran into the problem with this when I was talking to someone who has used Thomas Moore's six ideas book for many years.  I asked him a question of about the upward flow of downward moment (corresponding to the gravitational force) from the earth to the top book in the stack of books under discussion in this thread.  He didn't know what I was talking about.  When he figured it out he said that to him, the gravitational force corresponded to the downward flow of the z-component of momentum.  (He defined the z axis of a Cartesian coordinate system to be pointing upward so he wasn't wrong except for the fact that to him the flow in question is a flow of a scalar quantity.)  The fact that we are dealing with the flow of a vector quantity does make the concept more complicated than for instance, the flow of energy, but I don't think we should model it as the flow of the three scalar components of a vector quantity.  Those scalar components are not really even scalars in the sense that they don't transform as scalars.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phys-l [mailto:phys-l-bounces@phys-l.org] On Behalf Of John Denker
> Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2013 10:06 PM
> To: Phys-L@Phys-L.org
> Subject: [Phys-L] ? FCI --> momentum flow
>
> Hi --
>
> I have done some work on my document "introducuction to force and
> momentum"
>   http://www.av8n.com/physics/force-intro.htm
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