Weight (physics) Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-14
Here gravitational weight means the force on a body due to gravity. In the Newtonian model, a body of mass in a uniform gravitational acceleration has gravitational weight , with magnitude . Its direction follows ; a buoyant force is a separate contribution to the body's net force. [ref].
Work Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Work measures the energy transferred by a force as its point of application moves. For a point mass following a path , add the contribution of the force along each small displacement:
This line integral uses the actual path, and the dot product selects the component of force along the motion. A large force perpendicular to every small displacement does zero work; holding something still also does zero mechanical work on it, even if holding it feels tiring. The SI unit is . [ref]
The usefulness of work is that it connects a description in terms of forces and distances to one in terms of energy. The work-energy theorem gives the change in kinetic energy from the total net work, often without solving for the entire motion. The work of one selected force equals that change only when the other forces contribute zero total work.
Work done by a constant force Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-25
For a fixed force and endpoint displacement , the line integral reduces to a dot product:
Here is the angle between the force and the displacement. For straight motion, is also the distance traveled. A force acting along a displacement does of work. Turning the same force perpendicular to the displacement gives and zero work; reversing it gives and . At , the work is . These signs describe energy transferred to or from the moving body. [ref]
Figure 1.
Work from parallel, perpendicular, and opposing forces
. Each left panel shows a force and a rightward displacement. Each right panel plots the along-path force component against distance; its signed area is the work: , , or . The arrows compare directions; their lengths do not compare quantities with different units. The three panels prescribe motion to illustrate work; they are separate cases, not successive stages of one journey. Details.
The following values are stipulated arithmetic inputs, not measurements of a material. Take and lengths , . At forces , stipulate crosshead displacements
The two different initial offsets deliberately test the use of intercepts. Linear regression of gives , and
Their reciprocal spring constants are and . The compliance-versus-length slope is
so the recovered Young's modulus and machine compliance are
The corresponding apparatus spring constant is .
Figure 1.
Stipulated displacement fits separate length-dependent compliance from apparatus compliance
. Original calculated example, not experimental material data. Left: independent linear displacement fits at lengths 50 and 100 millimetres retain their different offsets. Right: the line through the two compliance values has slope 1/(EA0) and intercept Cm. The dashed segment extrapolates the model to zero length; it is not a third observation. Details.
Check the reconstruction at . The machine contribution is , and the two specimen contributions are and . Adding the respective offsets gives the stipulated and . An extensometer spanning on either ideal uniform specimen would instead read extension: engineering strain , at engineering stress . Their ratio is again . Ignoring machine compliance gives apparent moduli and even after removing the offsets. No yield point or real material identity is implied by these stipulated linear inputs.
Work-energy theorem Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For a point mass of constant mass observed in an inertial frame, the net work along its actual path equals its change in kinetic energy:
The middle expression is a line integral; the dot product selects the component of force along the displacement. Positive net work increases speed, negative net work decreases it, and zero net work leaves the endpoint speeds equal. Equal endpoint speeds do not imply equal velocities: a perpendicular force can continually change direction while doing zero work. [ref]
The bridge to Newton's second law is short: take the dot product of with velocity. The chain rule gives , equating the rate of change of kinetic energy to instantaneous power. Integrating gives the theorem. No conservative force assumption entered this argument; friction also contributes to the net work.
For the harmonic oscillator with spring stiffness , release a mass from rest at . The spring exerts . Its work before the first passage through is
Thus gives speed there. The velocity is negative on this passage because the position is decreasing. The energy calculation alone determines its magnitude, so the direction still requires information about the motion.
For a time-independent potential energy , the conservative force contributes work . Separating all other work as gives . Consequently conservation of mechanical energy requires zero net other work; the work-energy theorem itself does not require that conservation. With damping, mechanical energy decreases even though the theorem remains valid. [ref]
For attached-state elastic energy and a binding window much narrower than , the expected assisting work before is . The detachment tail produces resisting work . Mean force per head is for site spacing . The detachment-time second moment, not the square of its mean, fixes the resisting term. These are idealized prescribed-velocity kinetics, not a complete muscle energy budget.
The interpolation links chain extension to entropic tensile force, with contour length and persistence length . Small extension gives spring constant ; near the force stiffens as . The divergence assumes an inextensible backbone and is not a physical infinite tensile force. A branch fit estimates available contour and flexibility, not an unfolding activation barrier by itself.
Young's modulus Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-18
Young's modulus is the ratio of axial stress to axial strain in uniaxial linear elasticity. For an isotropic plate, the bending rigidity is , with thickness and Poisson's ratio .
A tensile modulus experiment asks how much a specimen stretches under an axial force, while allowing its sides to contract freely. For initial cross-sectional area and an extensometer spanning initial gauge length , define engineering stress and engineering strain . In the proportional range,
The ratio agrees with this derivative when the line passes through the unloaded origin. A fitted offset should not be mistaken for a material property. Young's modulus has units of pressure: . By contrast, the spring constant of a uniform tensile specimen of length is , with units . Two rods made of the same material can therefore have very different spring constants while sharing Young's modulus.
The normalization removes a useful geometrical ambiguity: doubling doubles the extension at a given force, whereas doubling halves it. For a round specimen ; for a rectangular one , using initial diameter , width and thickness . Diameter error matters twice at first order: . Specify material direction, temperature and loading rate when comparing Young's modulus. Lateral restraint changes the stress state and can prevent this experiment from measuring the uniaxial modulus.
The name commemorates Thomas Young, whose formulation of a measure of elasticity is recorded by the Royal Society. This attribution alone does not establish priority for every modern definition or experimental method.[ref]
Yukawa meson theory of nuclear forces Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
In 1935, Hideki Yukawa proposed a new massive exchange quantum to explain nucleon binding. His paper began with the inadequacy of an electron–neutrino exchange description of the binding strength. It then required a potential energy falling faster with distance than a Coulomb potential, introduced an exponentially decaying field, and related its inverse range to the exchange particle's rest mass. This was a theoretical proposal, not a detection with an apparatus of his own.[ref]
The crucial idea is that a finite rest mass supplies a length scale even in empty space. In a scalar model, the static limit of a Klein-Gordon equation produces the modified Helmholtz equation. Its decaying Green's function gives the Yukawa potential. The derivation below isolates this range mechanism; one-pion exchange also carries spin and isospin structure.
The nuclear emulsion track experiment used developed photographic emulsions exposed to cosmic rays and inspected microscopically. Stopping pions gave daughter muon tracks with closely grouped ranges. Comparing penetrating muons with pion-induced nuclear breakup distinguished their interactions; this was not a direct static force measurement. The muon is a lepton, not Yukawa's strongly interacting meson.[ref]