A glossary of the specific interactions that are commonly encountered in mechanics. In addition to being a resource describing these interactions, it is reasonable to consider this glossary to provide an organizational scheme for the WIKI content. From this perspective, the glossary encourages the view that mechanics is a collection of different ways to describe the effects of a particular group of interactions.

Commonly Encountered Interactions

Commonly Encountered Interactions

  • contact force — A force that arises when one macroscopic body presses against another.
    • applied force — When a person, animal or machine purposely pushes or pulls an object, the resulting contact force is often called an applied force.
    • collision forces — Contact forces occuring between objects involved in a collision. During a collision between relatively rigid bodies the collision forces will often far exceed other forces on the objects involved in the collision. In the limit that only collision forces are relevant the momentum of the system composed of all the colliding objects is conserved during the collision.
    • friction — The component of the contact force from a surface that is parallel to the plane of the surface. Friction forces will arise when (1.) an object is sliding along the surface or (2.) an object resting on the surface is subject to forces that would cause it to slide in the absence of friction. The force of friction will always resist the existing or intended sliding motion.
      • kinetic friction — The specific manifestation of friction that is directly opposed to an object's sliding motion along a surface. The force of kinetic friction has a size independent of the speed of the object, and proportional to the normal force exerted on the object by the surface.
      • static friction — The specific manifestation of friction which attempts to resist efforts to move an object that is currently at rest with respect to a surface. If possible, static friction provides just enough force to keep the object stationary, and no more. When the net force attempting to create sliding motion exceeds a certain limiting value proportional to the normal force exerted by the surface on the object, static friction will be unable to prevent motion.
    • normal force — An object in contact with a surface will always be subject to a contact force that has a component perpendicular to the surface which guarantees that the object will not pass through the surface. The name is derived from the mathematical meaning of normal (perpendicular).
  • gravitation (universal) — An interaction between two massive particles resulting in an attractive force exerted on each by the other.  The force is proportional to the gravitational constant G = 6.674 28(67) x 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2, and the masses of the bodies, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
    • gravity (near-earth) — The gravitational force exerted by the earth on an object near the earth's surface.
  • Hooke's Law for elastic interactions — A mathematical approximation to the restoring behavior of springs and other elastic solids under small deformations.

Error rendering macro 'deck'

java.lang.NullPointerException
  • No labels