Please provide a reference (link) for your graphs. I think they're about inter-nuclear energy in a molecule. — Gert3 hours ago
wait I can't post a link, the title of the post is: "Why is the potential energy minimal when the repulsion and attraction force between molecules is 0?"
If you're lifting it here or on Mount Everest, the force should be the same (ignoring variation of the gravitational potential, for now, since mountains are small compared to the radius of Earth)
If a force acting on an object is a function of position only, it is said to be a conservative force, and it can be represented by a potential energy function which for a one-dimensional case satisfies the derivative condition
ok so, infinity is a special case, I ll just have to live with the fact that for some reason the derivative (the lower curve) of the Ep which approaches infinity is not equal to 0
@privetDruzia This particular model just says: As you try to put the molecules closer and closer, they repulse each other stronger and stronger (in unbounded fashion, again).
When we discussed this topic yesterday, by criticism was mostly that I think it's better to discuss tensors in the component/coordinate free picture first.
My rather dingy ivory (or rather brick) tower is called "Reynolds Hall", which we (chemical and physical sciences) share with math and bio so it's a lot of fun.
Alas, we have no moat. Much less sharks with laser beams.
But our "cluster" is four quad-core computers in one of the mathematicians offices. Our computational nano-scale person is trying to rustle up some money for a little more horsepower or at least access to a grid.
We're actually getting overhead power fixtures for the teaching lab (instead of sticking up through the tables). I've never tried that, but a colleague tells me it is good.
@Danu I think he said he was getting two more boxes this year and that would about double the capacity of it. He's a crypto guy, so he need some horsepower and memory and disk.
An ideal gas is defined as one in which all collisions between atoms or molecules are perfectly eleastic and in which there are no intermolecular attractive forces.