Energy is nothing more than the ability to do work. In fact, I think the formula is something like this: delta energy = work. The change in energy of a system is the work done. How can you have an event that transfers a great deal of energy but very little work is done? That defies the very definition of the two words.
No. In those collisions, the momentum is transferred with little 'motion'.
The work done on a system directly correlates to the change in energy of the system. what do mean a parachute is "real" because "they do work"???
Quite well, it seems.
I can't even parse this. The only thing I could get out of this was that a windmill on the ground with a 10 mph wind going by it is somehow different than a windmill on a conveyor belt with the air not moving to the ground, but the belt moving at 10 mph.
Yes. The information is different;the natural behavior is different. An object being
dragged by a force that can meet every demand, is not the same as an object driven by a limited force.
According to the laws of physics as applied to each specific system.
If you could go back to that post of mine with the tower,
No thanks.
the top two drawings show a tower stationary and a tower moving on a converyor belt. If you could explain why the tower measures exactly the same windspeeds, but the two are not equivalent, I'd like to know.
If you change the tower to a windmill, both windmills in both situations would generate teh same amount of power.
I don't know what you're saying here at all.
They are not the same. Only the velocity is maintained. The precise operation depends on other variables, that are
not equivalent, in your example or on the treadmill
Humber, you do realize that if you put a windmill on the ground and it generates a kilowatt of power in a 10 mph wind, then if you had to generate the wind artificially (rather than letting just using solar-generated winds in a natural weather cycle), you do realize that it would take at least a kilowatt of power to generate that wind? Right?
yes. The belt generator may generate more, but that will come from the motor. It is not possible in real wind to demand more than is available. In one system, is power and force are limited, in the other (essentially) not. Big difference. That affects acceleration, and behavior in general. They may be similar, but not the same. Sometimes that difference is significant.
It takes power to move the treadmill, sure, but it takes power to move the air adn create wind. The only difference is one is man-made and one is from the sun. The "medium, or power source" is irrelevant. Either way, you've got to use power to move the air or the belt.
That is the difference, yes. One wind is generated by motion through the air, one is the wind, acting on that body. That is different. Different
return paths for that sun and man-made energy.
If you did the windmill fixed to teh ground in a giant airtight building, and that windmill was cranking out 50 kilowatts of power, then you'd have to have some fans somewhere moving the wind, and those fans would be consuming at least 50 kilowatts of power.
No, Greg, you are taking nothing on board.. Things are more complicated than that.
If you put the windmill on a belt in a giant airtight building and moved the belt fast enough so that the windmill generated 33 kilowatts of power, you'd have to be putting at least 33 kilowatts of power into the motor that is driving the belt.
They are exactly equivalent frames. The "medium, or power source" is irrelevant.
No, they are approximate models.
You are advancing a naive form of determinism, based on the kinematic action of a -hits-b, is b-hits-a. OK for text book examples, but not for real systems; they are no transposable or strictly reversible. Copious errors,here.
A simple example. A 1kg mass dropped on the floor, may have the same kinetic/potential energy equivalence of the same weight being raised to the same height, but not for the system.
Picking up a weight is not like dropping a weight, but 'backwards'. They are not the same actions. The treadmill and belt generator treadmill are different, for the same reasons, but not obviously so.
No matter, that is but one failure of the treadmill.