Vis viva
Encyclopedia
In the history of science
, vis viva (from the Latin
for living force) is an obsolete scientific theory that served as an elementary and limited early formulation of the principle of conservation of energy
. It can be thought of as a type of kinetic energy
or of energy related to sensible motions.
Proposed by Gottfried Leibniz
over the period 1676–1689, the theory was controversial as it seemed to oppose the theory of conservation of momentum advocated by Sir Isaac Newton
and René Descartes
. The two theories are now understood to be complementary.
The theory was eventually absorbed into the modern theory of energy
though the term still survives in the context of celestial mechanics
through the vis viva equation
.
had inklings of the law of conservation of energy, it was the German
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz during 1676–1689 who first attempted a mathematical formulation. Leibniz noticed that in many mechanical systems (of several mass
es, mi each with velocity
vi) the quantity:
was conserved. He called this quantity the vis viva or living force of the system. The principle, it is now realised, represents an accurate statement of the conservation of kinetic energy
in elastic collision
s, and is a consequence of the conservation of momentum. However, many physicist
s at the time were unaware of this connection and, instead, were influenced by the prestige of Sir Isaac Newton
in England
and of René Descartes
in France
, both of whom had set great store by the conservation of momentum as a guiding principle. Thus the momentum
:
was held by the rival camp to be the conserved vis viva. It was largely engineer
s such as John Smeaton
, Peter Ewart
, Karl Holtzmann, Gustave-Adolphe Hirn
and Marc Séguin
who objected that conservation of momentum alone was not adequate for practical calculation and who made use of Leibniz's principle. The principle was also championed by some chemist
s such as William Hyde Wollaston
.
The French mathematican Émilie du Châtelet
, who had a sound grasp of Newtonian mechanics, developed Leibniz' concept and, combining it with the observations of Willem 's Gravesande
, showed that vis viva was dependent on the square of the velocities.
Members of the academic establishment such as John Playfair
were quick to point out that kinetic energy is clearly not conserved. This is obvious to a modern analysis based on the second law of thermodynamics
but in the 18th and 19th centuries, the fate of the lost energy was still unknown. Gradually it came to be suspected that the heat
inevitably generated by motion was another form of vis viva. In 1783, Antoine Lavoisier
and Pierre-Simon Laplace
reviewed the two competing theories of vis viva and caloric theory
. Count Rumford
's 1798 observations of heat generation during the boring of cannon
s added more weight to the view that mechanical motion could be converted into heat. Vis viva now started to be known as energy, after the term was first used in that sense by Thomas Young
in 1807.
The recalibration of vis viva to include the coefficient of a half, namely:
was largely the result of the work of Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis
and Jean-Victor Poncelet
over the period 1819–1839. The former called the quantité de travail (quantity of work) and the latter, travail mécanique (mechanical work) and both championed its use in engineering calculation.
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, vis viva (from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
for living force) is an obsolete scientific theory that served as an elementary and limited early formulation of the principle of conservation of energy
Conservation of energy
The nineteenth century law of conservation of energy is a law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time. The total energy is said to be conserved over time...
. It can be thought of as a type of kinetic energy
Kinetic energy
The kinetic energy of an object is the energy which it possesses due to its motion.It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its acceleration, the body maintains this kinetic energy unless its speed changes...
or of energy related to sensible motions.
Proposed by Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
over the period 1676–1689, the theory was controversial as it seemed to oppose the theory of conservation of momentum advocated by Sir Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
and René Descartes
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
. The two theories are now understood to be complementary.
The theory was eventually absorbed into the modern theory of energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...
though the term still survives in the context of celestial mechanics
Celestial mechanics
Celestial mechanics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the motions of celestial objects. The field applies principles of physics, historically classical mechanics, to astronomical objects such as stars and planets to produce ephemeris data. Orbital mechanics is a subfield which focuses on...
through the vis viva equation
Vis-viva equation
In astrodynamics, the vis viva equation, also referred to as orbital energy conservation equation, is one of the fundamental and useful equations that govern the motion of orbiting bodies....
.
History
Although ancient philosophers as far back as Thales of MiletusThales
Thales of Miletus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Miletus in Asia Minor, and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition...
had inklings of the law of conservation of energy, it was the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz during 1676–1689 who first attempted a mathematical formulation. Leibniz noticed that in many mechanical systems (of several mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
es, mi each with velocity
Velocity
In physics, velocity is speed in a given direction. Speed describes only how fast an object is moving, whereas velocity gives both the speed and direction of the object's motion. To have a constant velocity, an object must have a constant speed and motion in a constant direction. Constant ...
vi) the quantity:
was conserved. He called this quantity the vis viva or living force of the system. The principle, it is now realised, represents an accurate statement of the conservation of kinetic energy
Kinetic energy
The kinetic energy of an object is the energy which it possesses due to its motion.It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its acceleration, the body maintains this kinetic energy unless its speed changes...
in elastic collision
Elastic collision
An elastic collision is an encounter between two bodies in which the total kinetic energy of the two bodies after the encounter is equal to their total kinetic energy before the encounter...
s, and is a consequence of the conservation of momentum. However, many physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
s at the time were unaware of this connection and, instead, were influenced by the prestige of Sir Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and of René Descartes
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, both of whom had set great store by the conservation of momentum as a guiding principle. Thus the momentum
Momentum
In classical mechanics, linear momentum or translational momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object...
:
was held by the rival camp to be the conserved vis viva. It was largely engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
s such as John Smeaton
John Smeaton
John Smeaton, FRS, was an English civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist...
, Peter Ewart
Peter Ewart
Peter Ewart was a British engineer who was influential in developing the technologies of turbines and theories of thermodynamics....
, Karl Holtzmann, Gustave-Adolphe Hirn
Gustave-Adolphe Hirn
Gustave-Adolphe Hirn was a French physicist, astronomer. mathematician and engineer who made important measurements of the mechanical equivalent of heat and contributions to the early development of thermodynamics...
and Marc Séguin
Marc Seguin
Marc Seguin was a French engineer, inventor of the wire-cable suspension bridge and the multi-tubular steam-engine boiler.- Biography :...
who objected that conservation of momentum alone was not adequate for practical calculation and who made use of Leibniz's principle. The principle was also championed by some chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
s such as William Hyde Wollaston
William Hyde Wollaston
William Hyde Wollaston FRS was an English chemist and physicist who is famous for discovering two chemical elements and for developing a way to process platinum ore.-Biography:...
.
The French mathematican Émilie du Châtelet
Émilie du Châtelet
-Early life:Du Châtelet was born on 17 December 1706 in Paris, the only daughter of six children. Three brothers lived to adulthood: René-Alexandre , Charles-Auguste , and Elisabeth-Théodore . Her eldest brother, René-Alexandre, died in 1720, and the next brother, Charles-Auguste, died in 1731...
, who had a sound grasp of Newtonian mechanics, developed Leibniz' concept and, combining it with the observations of Willem 's Gravesande
Willem 's Gravesande
Willem Jacob 's Gravesande was a Dutch philosopher and mathematician.-Life:Born in 's-Hertogenbosch, he studied law in Leiden and wrote a thesis on suicide. He was praised by John Bernoulli when he published his book Essai de perspective. In 1715, he visited London and King George I. He became a...
, showed that vis viva was dependent on the square of the velocities.
Members of the academic establishment such as John Playfair
John Playfair
John Playfair FRSE, FRS was a Scottish scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is perhaps best known for his book Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth , which summarized the work of James Hutton...
were quick to point out that kinetic energy is clearly not conserved. This is obvious to a modern analysis based on the second law of thermodynamics
Second law of thermodynamics
The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and...
but in the 18th and 19th centuries, the fate of the lost energy was still unknown. Gradually it came to be suspected that the heat
Heat
In physics and thermodynamics, heat is energy transferred from one body, region, or thermodynamic system to another due to thermal contact or thermal radiation when the systems are at different temperatures. It is often described as one of the fundamental processes of energy transfer between...
inevitably generated by motion was another form of vis viva. In 1783, Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier , the "father of modern chemistry", was a French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology...
and Pierre-Simon Laplace
Pierre-Simon Laplace
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace was a French mathematician and astronomer whose work was pivotal to the development of mathematical astronomy and statistics. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five volume Mécanique Céleste...
reviewed the two competing theories of vis viva and caloric theory
Caloric theory
The caloric theory is an obsolete scientific theory that heat consists of a self-repellent fluid called caloric that flows from hotter bodies to colder bodies. Caloric was also thought of as a weightless gas that could pass in and out of pores in solids and liquids...
. Count Rumford
Benjamin Thompson
Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford , FRS was an American-born British physicist and inventor whose challenges to established physical theory were part of the 19th century revolution in thermodynamics. He also served as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Loyalist forces in America during the American...
's 1798 observations of heat generation during the boring of cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
s added more weight to the view that mechanical motion could be converted into heat. Vis viva now started to be known as energy, after the term was first used in that sense by Thomas Young
Thomas Young (scientist)
Thomas Young was an English polymath. He is famous for having partly deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics before Jean-François Champollion eventually expanded on his work...
in 1807.
The recalibration of vis viva to include the coefficient of a half, namely:
was largely the result of the work of Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis
Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis
Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis or Gustave Coriolis was a French mathematician, mechanical engineer and scientist. He is best known for his work on the supplementary forces that are detected in a rotating frame of reference. See the Coriolis Effect...
and Jean-Victor Poncelet
Jean-Victor Poncelet
Jean-Victor Poncelet was a French engineer and mathematician who served most notably as the commandant general of the École Polytechnique...
over the period 1819–1839. The former called the quantité de travail (quantity of work) and the latter, travail mécanique (mechanical work) and both championed its use in engineering calculation.
See also
- Conservation of energy: Historical development
- Vis-viva equationVis-viva equationIn astrodynamics, the vis viva equation, also referred to as orbital energy conservation equation, is one of the fundamental and useful equations that govern the motion of orbiting bodies....