Resonances, Waves and Fields: Origins of Newton..
Resonances, Waves and Fields: Origins of Newton..
Resonances, Waves and Fields: Origins of Newton..
There are all sorts of resonances around us, in the world, in our culture, and in our technology. A tidal resonance causes
the 55 foot tides in the Bay of Fundy. Mechanical and acoustical resonances and their control are at the center of
practically every musical instrument that ever existed. Even our voices and speech are based on controlling the
resonances in our throat and mouth. Technology is also a heavy user of resonance. All clocks, radios, televisions, and gps
navigating systems use electronic resonators at their very core. Doctors use magnetic resonance imaging or MRI to sense
the resonances in atomic nuclei to map the insides of their patients. In spite of the great diversity of resonators, they all
share many common properties. In this blog, we will delve into their various aspects. It is hoped that this will serve both
the students and professionals who would like to understand more about resonators. I hope all will enjoy the animations.
For a list of all topics discussed, scroll down to the very bottom of the blog, or click here.
Three types of waves: traveling waves, standing waves and rotating waves new
T H U R S D A Y, J A N U A R Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 4
Actually Newton did not discover his laws in isolation. Many people were involved with
coming up with pieces of the laws which Newton put together and verified. This posting lists
the more famous of these earlier scholars. There are many more not quite so famous. It may be
Fig. 1. Sir Isaac Newton.
surprising that the quest had mostly to do with our understanding of how the planets in the
solar system move ... that mankind figured out how objects move on Earth by studying how planets move in space.
Furthermore, we were able to do this without modern technology.
Aristotle 384-322 BC: We begin with Aristotle 23 hundred years ago. This
philosopher of ancient Greece wrote about many things. Concerning
motion, he stated that objects in this world tended to return to their
native state which he deemed was at rest. According to Aristotle an
object will continue to move only if there is an active force continuing to
push it it, otherwise it would return to its rest state of not moving.
Aristotle was a believer in observing the world around him and this was
certainly what he observed in the world as a human, that moving objects
naturally come to rest.
Fig. 2. Roman copy of an old Greek bust of
Aristotle by Lysippos from 330 BC.
While a few other thinkers argued against this, Aristotle's teachings were
generally accepted as the truth for the next 15 hundred years.
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Fig. 9. Illustration showing the orbit (gray ellipse) of a planet around the Sun (in yellow)
according to Kepler's first and second laws. The time it takes for the planet to move from
Fig. 8. Kepler's three laws of planetary motion. point a to point b is equal to the time it takes it to move from point c to point d. The areas
(shown in blue) are equal. In order to better show the concept, this illustration has an
exaggerated ellipse. Real planetary orbits are closer to circular.
algebra.
Christiaan Huygens 1629-1695:
Dutch astronomer, physicist,
probabilist and horologist (expert
on clocks). While he developed
many important ideas of today's
physics, with regard to the laws of
motion he derived the formula for
Fig. 11. Statue of Descartes. centripetal force which arises in
circular motion F = mv2/r . This formula was essential to Newton's
developing his laws of motion and gravity.
Isaac Newton 1643-1727: English physicist and mathematician.
Published Philosophi Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy), in 1687 explaining his famous laws of
Fig. 12. Christiaan Huygens.
motion. Newton was first to develop a set of mathematical laws or
equations for the motion of all objects from planets down to those in
ordinary human life. His laws also included a law of gravity. He
developed calculus which he used to apply his laws of motion and
gravity to explain the orbits of planets, their moons, and comets.
[Mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz also developed calculus
simultaneous to Newton. Leibniz's notations for calculus are still in use
today.]
1. Understanding the orbits of the heavenly bodies in a simple model that is capable of being explained with just a
few laws of motion.
With regard to understanding the motions of the heavenly bodies, Ptolemy started the effort. Copernicus' insight
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This is really a restatement of Galileo's law of inertia with the modification that an
unforced moving object will continue on a straight line and not on a curved path.
Law 2: The force required to change the momentum of an object (mass times its velocity) is
equal to the change in momentum per unit of time. This law is usually remembered as
F = ma , i.e. force equals mass times acceleration.
This is a quantitative extension of the concept in Law 1, i.e. Law 1 addresses the no-
force case and Law 2 addresses the force case. Certainly all the scholars who would
Fig. 19. Newton's first law of motion says
agree with Law 1, such as Galileo, had in their mind that a force was required to that without external forces, like friction, a
moving object will continue moving forever.
make an object deviate from a constant velocity path. A lot of the problem was that
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Newton painstakingly verified that this gravitational force along with his Law 2 would produce the motion of the planets
as specified by Kepler. A modern derivation of Kepler's laws from Newton's laws is found here.
Law 3: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that if one
object exerts a force on a second object, the second object will automatically exert an
opposite force on the first object. The "opposite force" will be exactly equal in magnitude
to the first force, but exactly opposite in direction. This means that a force should be
considered a symmetrical interaction between two objects rather than one object
affecting the other.
At the time of Newton's work John Wallis had already verified that momentum
Fig. 21. Illustration of Newton's third law and
his law of universal gravity. Note that the force was conserved during a collision. In order for Newton's dynamics to be
exerted on mass 1 is the same magnitude as
that on mass 2 but opposite in direction. consistent with momentum conservation, this third law was required. It also was
consistent with and suggested by the symmetrical nature of Newton's
gravitational force equation.
References:
1. Numerous sites on Wikipedia e.g. under Newton's laws, Isaac Newton, and the various other people mentioned above.
Most sites are linked in the text. Many of the above illustrations are courtesy of Wikimedia.
2. The Scientists, John Gribbin, Random House, NY, 2002.
3. Isaac Newton, James Gleick, Pantheon Books, NY, 2003.
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P o s t e d b y P. C e p e r l e y a t 8 : 5 9 A M
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Wa v e s i n a r i n g r e s o n a t o r - s t a n d i n g a n d r o t a t i n g w a v e s
Traveling and standing waves in two and three dimensions - Cartesian coordinates
Standing waves and rotating waves in two dimensional circular resonators
Standing waves and rotating waves in three dimensional cylindrical resonators
Spherical harmonics
The Lagrangian approach to simple waves - several common waves that lack
momentum
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Clocks
History of Mechanical Clocks with Animations:
Understanding a mechanical clock with animations:
includes pendulum, balance wheel and quartz clocks
Album of 24 flash animations showing the physics of oscillations, waves, and phasors
The LRC circuit, the classical simple resonator: Marconi invents the wireless telegraph.
Wa t e r Wa v e s :
Wa t e r w a v e s
Wa t e r w a v e s - m a t h e m a t i c a l d e r i v a t i o n - p a r t 1
Wa t e r w a v e s d e r i v a t i o n 2 - d y n a m i c s o f t h e f r e e s u r f a c e
Fo u r i e r A n a l y s i s :
T h e s p e c t r u m o f a w a v e f o r m - Fo u r i e r A n a l y s i s
M a t h e m a t i c a l d e f i n i t i o n o f Fo u r i e r s e r i e s
Sines, cosines, and phases
H o w g o o d i s a Fo u r i e r s e r i e s o f a f u n c t i o n a t r e p r o d u c i n g t h e o r i g i n a l f u n c t i o n ?
S y m m e t r i e s i n Fo u r i e r s e r i e s
Special relativity
Non-mathematical introduction to relativity - 9 part series
- NEW - Mathematics of special relativity - 19 part series
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The Author
Pe r m i t t e d u s e o f m a t e r i a l o n t h i s b l o g a n d h o w t o d o w n l o a d f r e e a n i m a t i o n s f r o m t h i s s i t e .
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