Forces affect every moment of our life. Our bodies are held to the Earth by force, and they are held together by the forces of charged particles. When we open a door, walk down a street, lift a fork, or touch a baby's face, we are applying force. Our body's atoms are held together by electrical forces, and the core of an atom, called the nucleus, is held together by the strongest force known to us—nuclear force.
The study of motion is called kinematics, but kinematics only...

In steady, incompressible flow through a long, straight pipe with a uniform cross-section, the flow in the central region (far from the pipe walls) is irrotational. This irrotational nature means that fluid particles do not rotate around their axes, and a scalar function called the velocity potential, represented by ϕ, can be used to describe their movement. In irrotational flows, the velocity field V is defined as the gradient of the velocity potential:

Force and momentum are intimately related. Force acting over time can change momentum, and Newton's second law of motion can be stated in its most broadly applicable form in terms of momentum. Momentum can be applied to systems where the mass is changing, such as rockets, as well as to systems of constant mass. Also, momentum continues to be a key concept in the study of atomic and subatomic particles in quantum mechanics. One can consider systems with varying mass in some detail; however, the...

Consider a particle moving under the action of a conservative force that has components along each coordinate axis. Each component of force is a function of the coordinates. The potential energy function U is also a function of all three spatial coordinates. Force in one dimension can be written as the negative ratio of potential energy change to the displacement along that coordinate. For minimal displacement, the ratios become derivatives. If a function has many variables, the derivative only...

Kinetic energy is the ability of an object in motion to do work or enact change. It can take on many forms. For instance, water flowing down a waterfall has kinetic energy. In biological systems, particles of light travel and are absorbed by plants to create chemical energy. Animals consume the chemical energy and give off molecules that carry their scent through the air. They also generate kinetic energy when they run away from predators. Entire systems also possess kinetic energy, like the...

Force can be calculated from the expression for potential energy, which is a function of position. The component of a conservative force, in a particular direction, equals the negative of the derivative of the corresponding potential energy with respect to the displacement in that direction. For regions where potential energy changes rapidly with displacement, the work done and force is maximum. Also, when force is applied along the positive coordinate axis, the potential energy decreases with...