Kinetic energy is relative to the observer's reference frame.
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Reference literature and physics texts establish that an object's kinetic energy depends on its velocity relative to the observer's frame of reference, making it frame-dependent.
Physics curriculum of middle school and high school is based on the classic perspective of the 19th century and avoids dealing with the concept of observer (frame of reference). This by far holds regarding the curriculum of middle school, as even though it includes numerous observer-dependent concepts (location, trajectory, displacement, velocity, force, energy, work), it entirely excludes observer and observer dependent description of reality, and they are not taught as such. This tradition apparently draws on the assumption that students are incapable of learning observer dependent concepts because that requires an account with multiple answers valid for different observers. For that reason it is considered to be as a sort of advanced subject matter that should be treated at higher education level. We empirically checked this convention and discovered that 9th grade students succeeded in applying frame of reference dependence to their accounts of daily experiences. For example, they were able to construct graphs expressing dependence of displacement, distance, and velocity on time in the perspective of different inertial frames of references. The results clearly indicate that integrated observer-dependent concepts in middle school promises substantial educational and pedagogical benefits (e.g. wider space of learning, intuitively and meaningful learning, students’ engagement and adequate image of science).
frames of reference, depending on the motion of the observer. This implies the kinetic energy, in both Newtonian mechanics and relativity, is 'frame dependent'
In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the relationship between mass and energy in a system's rest frame. The two differ only by a multiplicative constant and the units of measurement. The principle is described by the physicist Albert Einstein's formula:
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For closed systems made up of many parts, like an atomic nucleus, planet, or star, the relativistic energy is given by the sum of the relativistic energies of each of the parts, because energies are additive in these systems. If a system is bound by attractive forces, and the energy gained in excess of the work done is removed from the system, then mass is lost with this removed energy. The mass of an atomic nucleus is less than the total mass of the protons and neutrons that make it up. This mass decrease is also equivalent to the energy required to break up the nucleus into individual protons and neutrons. This effect can be understood by looking at the potential energy of the individual components. The individual particles have a force attracting them together, and forcing them apart increases the potential energy of the particles in the same way that lifting an object up on earth does. This energy is equal to the work required to split the particles apart. The mass of the Solar System is slightly less than the sum of its individual masses.
For an isolated system of particles moving in different directions, the invariant mass of the system is the analog of the rest mass, and is the same for all observers, even those in relative motion. It is defined as the total energy (divided by c2) in the center of momentum frame. The center of momentum frame is defined so that the system has zero total momentum; the term center of mass frame is also sometimes used, where the center of mass frame is a special case of the center of momentum frame where the center of mass is put at the origin. A simple example of an object with moving parts but zero total momentum is a container of gas. In this case, the mass of the container is given by its total energy (including the kinetic energy of the gas molecules), since the system's total energy and invariant mass are the same in any reference frame where the momentum is zero, and such a reference frame is also the only frame in which the object can be weighed. In a similar way, the theory of special relativity posits that the thermal energy in all objects, including solids, contributes to their total masses, even though this…
space-time language itself is relative to the reference frame in which it is expressed … terms that are relative to the observer’s frame of reference. According to the theory of relativity … it had matured to the stage of general relativity1. In addition to the implications of
that is a function of velocity, the kinetic energy of an object depends on the relationship between the object and the observer's frame of reference. Thus
In physics, the kinetic energy of an object is the form of energy that it possesses due to its motion.
In classical mechanics, the kinetic energy of a non-rotating object of mass m traveling at a speed v is
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The application of the reversion process to tangential velocity components, implies the conversion of random motion rotation kinetic energy into systematic motion rotation kinetic energy. The application of the reversion process to axial velocity components, implies the conversion of random motion translation kinetic energy into systematic motion translation kinetic energy, and the loss related to a change of reference frame is expressed in terms of systematic (imaginary) motion rotation kinetic energy. A procedure is sketched for deriving the spin parameter distribution (including imaginary rotation) from a sample of observed or simulated large-scale collisionless fluids i.e. galaxies and galaxy clusters. Published as: SerAJ 176 (2008) 23-35
DOI: 10.2298/SAJ0876023C
arXiv categories: astro-ph
Everything we examined (5) — 4 independent sources
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