Re: What Flows?

[palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer)]

> It's also not the case that torque really has the same units as energy.
> There's the little matter of a cross product.  I don't see how units in a
> cross product end up the same as from a dot product or scalar
> multiplication.

WHAT?! Need I say *magnitude* of the torque? I consider this statement to
be manifestly incorrect. I have heard some (old) teachers like to express
energy in foot pounds and torque in pound feet, but the dimensions are
certainly the same. I've heard the same thing said of temperatures
(degrees Celsius) and temperature changes (Celsius degrees), but those
dimensions are also the same. Torque, work, heat, and energy all have the
same dimensions (M L^2 T^-2). They may be expressed in different units,
but that does not change the fact of their dimensionality.

Leigh