KINETICS

branch of classical mechanics that concerns the effect of forces and torques on the motion of bodies having mass. Authors using the term kinetics apply the nearly synonymous name dynamics (q.v.) to the classical mechanics of moving bodies. This is in contrast to statics, which concerns bodies at rest, under equilibrium conditions. They include under dynamics both kinetics and kinematics (the description of motion in terms of position, velocity, and acceleration, apart from the influence of forces, torques, and masses). Authors not using the term kinetics divide classical mechanics into kinematics and dynamics, including statics as a special case of dynamics in which the sum of the forces and the sum of the torques are both zero.