Re: Energy before work

[Jim Green <JMGreen@SISNA.COM>]

Ludwik, when publishers present this kind of drivel, I shut myself off in a
room somewhere and yell at the top of my voice -- calm down and resign
myself once again to the fact that physics teachers will never get it right.

But this is the worst it has ben since Carnot:  "work" is a "flow of
energy"???  Good grief!!!

Through the book out as you would unmitigated trash -- It seems to have no
redeeming value.

At 13:52 09 07 2002 , the following was  received:
> I am browsing the Unit C of the "Six Ideas that Shaped
> Physics" by Thomas A. Moore. The book (2nd edition)
> was sent to me by the publisher (McGraw-Hill). I see that
> the concept of energy is introduced, and used, long before
> the introduction of work. On page 181 I see this:
>
> "In physic, heat is any energy that crosses the boundary
> between the two objects BECAUSE of the temperature
> difference between them. Let me emphasize that to be
> HEAT, the energy in question MUST:
>
> 1) Be flowing across some kind of boundary between
>     two objects, and
> 2) Do so as a direct result of a temperature difference
>     across that boundary.
>
> We define work to be any OTHER kind of energy
> flowing across the object's boundary.


Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen