Hi Brian:
My comment on what your student wrote is question as to why is work equal
to zero. He did calculate the net (frictional) force acting on the cube
and the distnce over which this force was acting. Why is work zero?
And I suspect that Leigh will repeat what he wrote about heat on Sunday
evening. He wrote "Certainly heat plays no role in the process; no energy
is transferred between the blocks imelled by temperature differences."
By the way, I see the accepted thermodynamic definition of heat in this
quotation. This is not the same thing as c*m*dT, which he also called
heat. I agree with Leigh that we have lingustic problems in this area.
Do you think some progress was made in our debate to resolve these
problems?
OK, perhaps I should say I have problems. These have nothing to do with
the fact that English was not the language in which I was "schooled".