Re: bernoulli.101
by linford86 on July 10th, 2010, 11:03 pm
Look, rw, I'm not sure what you wish to accomplish here. If you want to keep on blathering about your alternative theory concerning the motion of spacecraft -- and I can see that that is where this thread is going -- then we are unfortunately going to have to take moderator action.
If, however, you want me to explain to you the proper statement of Bernoulli's principle, then I can do that. However, you have already attempted to fight my more technical definition. I cannot -- and probably should not -- instruct students who are unruly and argumentative. And let me make this very clear to you; the only role that I am willing to take towards you is as a teacher which means that I expect you to respond as a student, which means that you will stop arguing with me and you will make some attempt to understand what I am saying. You can ask as many questions as you would like, but if I feel that it is a battle to convince you of some point, then its not worth my time. That is to say, I really don't feel like going to war with you; life would be simpler for both of us if you regarded me as someone from whom you could learn, instead of regarding me as an adversary. The only other action that I am willing to make towards you is to kick you straight off here and never speak to you ever again. So either you will accept instruction or you will say good bye to this forum.
First, I need to say that what you originally quoted as Bernoulli's Principle is simply not Bernoulli's Priciple. It is an application of Bernoulli's Principle, which often mistakenly gets called "Bernoulli's Principle". The true statement of Bernoulli's Principle is the one I already gave. However, since you gave your K.I.S.S. request, I'll provide you with something simple. The simplest statement of Bernoulli's Principle that I know how to give is that under certain very precise (in fact, mathematically precise) conditions, as the velocity of a fluid increases, the pressure decreases and vice versa.
It is true that it is often taught that airplane flight is due to the shape of the wing. And, in fact, I would be willing to bet that the museum you mentioned teaches it that way. I've been there, but it's definitely been many years since my last visit. However, as with most things, the real story behind airplane flight is far more complicated and involves more than Bernoulli's principle. Therefore, strictly speaking, it is simply false that the geometry alone is responsible for flight. If that were true, then, for example, aircraft would not be able to fly upside down. There are fighter jets which can and routinely do fly upside down. You might have seen some examples of this stunt work portrayed in the Tom Cruise film Top Gun.
Now, it is also false that Bernoulli's Principle is somehow disconnected from Newton's Laws. You seem to think that they are somehow disconnected. You wrote:
"It is only in the manner of unclear thinking and speaking that systems are warped to violate the rule of real physics."
Yet, Bernoulli's Principle is not real physics, in the sense that it does not apply universally and it is not believed to be a law. In fact, it cannot be a fundamental law because it is derivable from deeper laws under very precise conditions and is known to hold only under those precise conditions. It is known, and accepted, that there are conditions under which Bernoulli's Principle fails to be true. Perhaps this is why we call it a principle, though I should note, in passing, that there are many other principles in physics which are not called "laws" but probably should be (in the sense that they are truly deep and fundamental. Noether's Theorem or Einstein's Field Equations are a couple of examples.)
I also dislike your present terminology. The statement that force is "inertial differential" is unclear, and -- in fact, if taken literally -- simply false. In physics, the word "differential" means an infinitely small change, and mass is taken to be the measure of linear inertia. Thus, literally speaking, "inertial differential" would mean an infinitely small change in mass. The more proper statement is that force is the rate of change of the momentum with respect to time. In the case that mass is constant and quantum and relativistic effects are negligible, then force is linearly proportional to the acceleration with the mass being the proportionality constant (that is to say, F=ma, or force equals mass times acceleration). This is precisely what we call "Newton's second law".
Furthermore, the simplest statement of Bernoulli's Principle that I can give you is that under certain very specific conditions, as the velocity of a fluid goes up, the pressure goes down, and vice versa. I don't know what "inverse pressure differential" means to you, but again, in physics, that would be an abuse of terminology.