Exploration 7.6: Different Interactions
Animation 1 | Animation 2 | Animation 3 | Animation 4 | Animation 5
Please wait for the animation to completely load.
The animations show a red ball that you can drag with the mouse (position is given in meters, time is given in seconds, and energy on the bar graph is given in joules). The bar graph shows the negative of the force on the ball integrated over the displacement from the origin. This is the negative of the work done on the ball to get it to this position. This integral, when the force is conservative, is also the potential energy associated with the ball when it is at this position. Also shown is a table with a calculation of position and the negative of the work. Restart.
- Briefly describe the force in each animation.
- Which of the forces is conservative? Why?
- For the conservative forces, draw the potential energy function.
Physlets were developed at Davidson College and converted from Java to JavaScript using the SwingJS system developed at St. Olaf College.
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