nLab mechanics

Contents

Context

Physics

physics, mathematical physics, philosophy of physics

Surveys, textbooks and lecture notes


theory (physics), model (physics)

experiment, measurement, computable physics

Contents

Idea

In physics the word mechanics refers essentially to every formalization of dynamics. Often the use of the word it may be restricted to mean the dynamics of point particles or rigid body dynamics.

Historically one distinguishes between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics . The full theory of dynamics is nature is given by quantum mechanics, but classical mechanics (named after its full development at the end of the 19th century, before the insights that led to its refinement to quantum mechanics) provides an accurate approximation for “macroscopic” or otherwise “large” systems.

Last revised on November 1, 2012 at 16:36:42. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.