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Re: [Phys-L] let's define energy




On 2015, Sep 29, , at 13:09, Marty Weiss <martweiss@comcast.net> wrote:

I meant "lost" in the sense that it is no longer useful to do something. Why does the car stop? The energy is "lost" to heat, etc.

Students can understand conservation but they need something concrete to be able to say why the car stopped.

Thus I use "lost" in quotes to indicate the energy is not useful.

They know it is not lost as such but the quotes has come to have meaning to them when they explain what is happening.


On 09/29/2015 11:50 AM, Marty Weiss wrote:

I would argue that the "meaning" we should concentrate on with our
students is in the conservation of the energy in the system, the
"loss" of the energy from useful to wasted energy, or concepts like
those, rather than what the word itself means.



I thought MW made quite clear the meaning of “loss”, I thought acceptable to anyone.
The only improvement would be to pretty it up w/ it in relation to entropy.


bc, too naive?