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Lección 123456789 PDF
Lección 123456789 PDF
Nineteenth century saw the climax of the achievements of classical physics: laws of mechanics,
electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics provide a very good description of many macroscopic
properties.
(a) Newtonian mechanics: The dynamics of a particle of mass is described by Newton's second law
(1.1)
where is the force acting on ith particle due to jth particle. Newton's second law that action and
(1.2)
momentum,
(1.3)
One also has the result that for conservative forces for which work done on a closed path vanishes, the total
energy is constant,
(1.4)
(1.5)
The force proportional to is one of the most beautiful forms of interaction. Going over to the centre of
mass frame,
(1.6)
one gets
(1.7)
This equation provides a very good description of the dynamics of planets and satellites. In particular we
note that Runge-Lenz vector is a constant,
(1.8)
(1.9)
where is the total energy, which implies that we have closed orbits for bound planets with
negative . For the source of gravitational force being a mass distribution with mass density
, one gets for the gravitational potential
(1.10)
(1.11)
This leads to
(1.12)
which may be regarded as a multi-pole expansion of the potential. For an ellipsoidal earth with
rotational symmetry,
(1.13)
(1.14)
correct to order , where we have included the term coming from the centrifugal force.
Taking the potential to be constant on the surface, it leads to the results
(1.15)
for the bulge on the surface of the earth and the difference in the gravitational acceleration at and
. It may also be noted that the earth has an extra observed bulge of about 80 m in the southern
hemisphere.
(b) Electromagnetic fields and interaction: The Maxwell's equations govern the properties of
electromagnetic fields. They are
(1.16)
(1.17)
(c) Statistical mechanics: Supplement the basic laws of mechanics and electromagnetism, with statistical
mechanics to describe the properties of macroscopic bodies. Statistical mechanics is the underlying
microscopic theory of thermodynamics and kinetic theory.
The situation appeared to be very satisfying. However, there were some irritations and more irritations
started coming in very rapidly around the turn of the century. One was the non-invariance of of
electromagnetic equations under Galilean transformations. Related problem was the invariance of the speed
of light in different inertial frames. Another was the observation of discrete lines in atomic spectra. Then
there was a deluge of new observations requiring fundamental changes in our ideas about the physical
world. Though the classical laws continued to be useful, they are to be regarded as certain approximations
to the more general fundamental laws of nature.