8.01 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Conservative Force, Zero Point Railway Station
Document Summary
Worked example: change in potential energy for inverse square gravitational force. Consider an object of mass m moving towards the sun (mass m ). Initially the object is at a distance r from the center of the sun. The object moves to a nal distance r from the center of the sun. When the only forces acting on the object are conservative forces then the change in potential energy is. 0 = e is the same as saying e is constant. Identify state of system before interaction and state of nal states. A small point like object of mass m rests on top of a sphere of radius r. The object is released from the top of the sphere with a negligible speed and it slowly starts to slide and g is the magnitude of the gravitational acceleration.
