Conservation law
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In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves. The following is a partial listing of conservation laws that have never been shown to be inexact.
- conservation of energy
- conservation of momentum
- conservation of angular momentum
- conservation of electric charge
- conservation of color charge
- CPT symmetry
There are also approximate conservation laws. These are approximately true in particular situations, such as low speeds, short time scales, or certain interactions.
- conservation of baryon number (See chiral anomaly)
- conservation of flavor (violated by the weak interaction)
- conservation of mass (only in nonrelativistic theories)
- conservation of parity
- CP symmetry.
Noether's theorem expresses the equivalence which exists between conservation laws and the invariance of physical laws with respect to certain transformations (typically called "symmetries") for systems which obey the Principle of least action and hence having a Lagrangian and a Hamiltonian (See Classical mechanics, Hamiltonian mechanics for details). For instance, time invariance implies that energy is conserved, translation invariance implies that momentum is conserved, and rotation invariance implies that angular momentum is conserved.
Philosophy of Conservation Laws
- Things that remain unchanged, in the midst of change
The idea that some things remain unchanging throughout the evolution of the universe has been motivating philosophers and scientists alike for a long time.
In fact, quantities that are conserved, the invariants, seem to preserve what some would like to call some kind of a 'physical reality' and seem to have a more meaningful existence than many other physical quantities. These laws bring a great deal of simplicity into the structure of a physical theory. They are the ultimate basis for most solutions of the equations of physics.de:Erhaltungssatz el:Νόμος Διατήρησης fr:Loi de conservation it:Legge di conservazione hu:Megmaradsi ttel nl:Behoudswet id:Hukum kekekalan ja:保存則 pl:Prawa zachowania ru:Закон сохранения sl:Ohranitveni zakon uk:Закони збереження zh:守恒定律