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conservation law comparison table |
Subject | has conserved quantity | has definition |
---|---|---|
conservation of angular momentum | angular momentum | The total angular momentum of an isolated dynamical system does not change during the course of its evolution. |
conservation of charge | charge | |
conservation of energy | energy | The total energy of a system (including kinetic energy and gravitational energy) is conserved and does not vary. Thus, kinetic energy can only increase at the expense of gravitational potential energy. Modern physics has modified the law of conservation of energy, since matter can be created or annihilated; a more general law is the conservation of mass and energy. |
conservation of mass and energy | mass and energy | Important physical principle and one of the basic laws of physics stating that matter is neither created nor destroyed (although mass may become energy, the energy quantitatively represents the mass). One exception to this principle is a singularity; another follows from the theory of virtual particles. |
conservation of matter | matter | The principle that matter is neither created nor destroyed. This principle is only approximately true, since special relativity shows that matter and energy are equivalent and interconvertible. |
conservation of momentum | momentum | The principle that the linear momentum of a system (in Newtonian mechanics, mass times velocity) remains the same as long as no external force acts. |
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