Question

E = mc^2 documentary .. its great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROC8zSiw1x4

that initial part is just the intro :D.. the real thing starts after a while though!

Answer 1

I don't understand.. in this documentary.. they have mentioned about newton's fallacy

that he had claimed Energy of a body is proportional to its velocity and not its squared!!? how is it that its never mentioned ever!?.. and totally unheard of

Answer 2

@rajathsbhat @yrelhan4

Answer 3

interesting history here if your willing to dig through it and in a few minutes I found. Leibniz introduced the concept of "vis viva" meaning life force and defined it as MV^2 !!! and showed it was conserved. Newton at the time has championed the momentum MV showing it was conserved. They was a competition between the two ideas Newton with Descartes versus Leibniz i.e., England and France versus Germany.

Answer 4

but never did Newton say that energy is proportional to Velocity!.. which is stated in teh documentary!..

Answer 5

correct.
because energy was not a concept of the time. At the time It seems that the issue was the concept referred to as the "quantity of motion " Newton thought it was MV and Leibniz thought it was MV^2,

Answer 6

ahh.. ok .. so probably the text books omit that part to make sure you don't get confused lol :D

Answer 7

Actually textbooks tell little about the history and controversies of physics. I think a course in the history of physics would be of value and very interesting to physics student.

Answer 8

Ofcourse.. thats what i wanna do.. i wanna include as much interesting history as possible in my lectures.. thats the reason i see these documentaries and do research..

Answer 9

In this thread i have discovered some interesting things. For one, Leibniz contrary to Newton did not believe in an absolute reference frame. how about that Einstein.