Re: Energy, etc

[brian whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

At 17:17 8/3/99 -0400, John Denker wrote:
> At 11:26 AM 8/3/99 -0600, Jim Green wrote:
> > "Energy" is not "located"  It does not "flow".  It is not like water,
> > as Leigh says.  Energy is a property of a system.
>
> 1) Do you have any experimental or theoretical evidence for this assertion?
> Even if it were true, I don't see how you could prove it.  It's hard to
> prove a negative.  Just because *you* don't know how to localize it doesn't
> mean it can't be localized.

Permit me to offer a straw man to this debate - in a form often
mentioned here - called kinetic energy.
 This is indeed a prickly topic for some physicists.
   The formulaic 1/2 m.v^2 is the nub of it.

       Folks remind themselves that v is usually relative (?),
so that kinetic energy is relative, and by changing their frame,
 they shift energy between the moving article to the scenery which
 was thought to be immobile. This means they believe they know how to
'relocalize' it!

Though the stark form in which I offer this description is easily
knocked down (it is after all a straw-man) I fancy this has something
to do with the  "Energy as an accounting device" credo.





brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK