Menu

Home Explore People Places Arts History Plants & Animals Science Life & Culture Technology

Science Physics Mechanics Basics

Basics

Analytical mechanics

Concerned with the relationship between motion of bodies and its causes, namely the forces acting on the bodies and the properties of the bodies (particularly mass and moment of inertia)

Science of the motion of projectiles

An instance of two or more bodies physically contacting each other within short period of time

Continuum mechanics

Branch of physics which studies the behavior of materials modeled as continuous masses

Degrees of freedom (mechanics)

Number of independent parameters needed to define the state of a mechanical system

Displacement (geometry)

Vector relating the initial and the final positions of a moving point

Dynamics (mechanics)

Branch of physics studying forces and their effect on motion

Elastic collision

Collision in which kinetic energy is conserved

Flight International

British aviation magazine

Particle that, in some sense, is not bound by an external force, or equivalently not in a region where its potential energy varies

Harmonic oscillator

Physical system that responds to a restoring force inversely proportional to displacement

Inelastic collision

Collision where energy is lost to heat, so that kinetic energy is not conserved

Branch of physics describing the motion of objects or groups of objects without considering its cause

Mechanical advantage

Measure of the force amplification achieved by using a tool, mechanical device or machine system

Mechanical equilibrium

In classical mechanics, a particle is in mechanical equilibrium if the net force on that particle is zero

Science concerned with physical bodies subjected to forces or displacements

Pattern of motion in which all parts of the system move sinusoidally with the same frequency and with a fixed phase relation

Repetitive variation of some measure about a central value

Mathematical abstraction modeling objects with zero extent, heavily used in physics to understand nature

Relativistic mechanics

Theory of motion and forces for objects close to the speed of light

Shock (mechanics)

Sudden transient acceleration

Simple harmonic motion

To and fro periodic motion in science and engineering

Branch of mechanics concerned with balance of forces in nonmoving systems

Study of an Partical

Physics theorem