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From page 187: “In ordinary language, conserving energy means trying not to waste useful energy resources. In the scientific meaning of conservation, energy is always conserved no matter what happens.” Conservation of energy is one of the few universal principles of physics. No exception has ever been found.
Conservation laws are the fundamental laws of the universe, the guiding principles upon which systems interact and evolve. We will continue to apply the lessons we learn in this chapter to help us to understand a wide variety of situations throughout the rest of the book.
It leads to the answer what energy is and why it is conserved, describes the origin and meaning of entropy, and derives the set of energy forms and shows the general systematics behind the ...
Conservation of Energy in order to analyze the change of state of a system. Definition: Change of Energy The total change in energy of a system and its surroundings between the final state and the initial state is zero, ∆=EEtotal ∆system +∆Esurroundings =0 (D.1.1)
Conservation of energy means that the sum of these changes is zero, N Δ E. 1 + Δ. E. 2 + ⋅⋅⋅+ Δ. E. N = ∑. Δ. E. j = 0 . (13.1.2) =1 . Two important points emerge from this idea. First, we are interested primarily in changes in energy and so we search for relations that describe how each form of energy changes.
Whenever an object moves up against gravity or a spring is compressed, energy is stored in what we call potential energy. Since we have conservation of mechanical energy, which is the sum of the potential and kinetic energies, this stored energy can later be used to generate, or be transferred to, kinetic energy.
• Define conservative force, potential energy, and mechanical energy. • Explain the potential energy of a spring in terms of its compression when Hooke’s law applies. • Use the work-energy theorem to show how having only conservative forces implies conservation of mechanical energy.
