We then went over two topics - one connected to yesterday's video that mentioned the dot product between two vectors, and the other related to graphing. The dot product that we saw yesterday provides a way to calculate the component of the force in the direction of motion when we calculate work, and today we saw the equation we should use - W = F x cos(theta) x d, where F is force, d is the distance over which the force acts, and theta is the angle between the applied force and the direction of motion. Here's the equation clipped from the online notes:
We worked through an example of this and then we discussed the idea of graphing force versus distance and how the area under that curve becomes the work done, shown below:
Next we began learning about energy and the different forms it can take, and most importantly, the definition - the ability or capacity to do work. It has the same units as work (the joule), and is directly related to it. Energy is conserved, meaning it does not get created or destroyed, and only gets exchanged between objects, systems, or forms. The total is always the same. Kinetic energy (the energy of motion) and potential energy (stored energy) are the two types that make up mechanical energy, and their sum (KE + PE) equal the total mechanical energy of an object or system.We did a few examples of calculating KE, and then finished up with a review of the weekend blog assignment, which is to read the existing posts on our "Home Base" blog, and the model post you are now reading, and leave a "thoughtful" comment on one of them. Monday we will start writing scribe posts for real.
5 comments:
This blog is really helpful, you put a lot of work into this. Thanks, its a great review!
I agree with Katie Vaughan. Reading through it definitely helped me review the processes and equations we learned in class on Friday. I think this will be a good thing since I feel the things we learnin class need to be reiterated or reviewed in some way or else we'll forget them.
I agree with the katies. I think that the blog will help us review for the midterm. i wish we did it since the beginning of the year so that there would be every topic written about but hopefully it will be successful for the second half of the year.
I agree with the Kaitie's as well as Julia with the blog helping us study for the midterm with and overview of different topics. I also thought that this blog helped me to understand using cos in the equations better.
don't want to set the bar too high.
but at the same time it is a good example to start with.
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