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Re: [Phys-l] Equations again



A colleague belatedly supplies an example of what I was trying to address:

From the Wikipedia article "Conservation-of-Energy:"

"...For a thermodynamic system with a fixed number of particles, the first law of thermodynamics may be stated as: (sic)
dbarQ = dU + dbarW, or equivalently, dU = dbarQ - dbarW, where dbarQ is the amount of energy added to the system by a heating process, dbarW is the amount of energy lost by the system due to work done by the system on its surroundings and dU is the increase in the internal energy of the system...." (punctuation sic with dbar replacing the symbol used)

Now, folks, Q and W are energy???

Hence, the original question: in F=ma does your brain think of F as force or as acceleration?

In an equation is each side of the equation thought of as having identical dimensions?

Jim