Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In physics, a conservative force is a force with the property that the total work done by the force in moving a particle between two points is independent of the path taken. [1] Equivalently, if a particle travels in a closed loop, the total work done (the sum of the force acting along the path multiplied by the displacement ) by a conservative ...
The ancient Greek understanding of physics was limited to the statics of simple machines (the balance of forces), and did not include dynamics or the concept of work. During the Renaissance the dynamics of the Mechanical Powers, as the simple machines were called, began to be studied from the standpoint of how far they could lift a load, in addition to the force they could apply, leading ...
The non-mechanical work of force fields can have either positive or negative sign, work being done by the system on the surroundings, or vice versa. Work done by force fields can be done indefinitely slowly, so as to approach the fictive reversible quasi-static ideal, in which entropy is not created in the system by the process.
In physics, Hooke's law is an empirical law which states that the force (F) needed to extend or compress a spring by some distance (x) scales linearly with respect to that distance—that is, F s = kx, where k is a constant factor characteristic of the spring (i.e., its stiffness), and x is small compared to the total possible deformation of the spring.
The work done by a conservative force is = where is the change in the potential energy associated with the force. The negative sign provides the convention that work done against a force field increases potential energy, while work done by the force field decreases potential energy.
The force of the spring reverses the direction of rotation, so the wheel oscillates back and forth, driven at the top by the clock's gears. Torsion springs consisting of twisted ropes or sinew , were used to store potential energy to power several types of ancient weapons; including the Greek ballista and the Roman scorpio and catapults like ...
The following table gives formula for the spring that is equivalent to a system of two springs, in series or in parallel, whose spring constants are and . [1] The compliance c {\displaystyle c} of a spring is the reciprocal 1 / k {\displaystyle 1/k} of its spring constant.)
If is the displacement, the force exerted by an ideal spring equals: =, where is the spring constant (or force constant), which is particular to the spring. The minus sign accounts for the tendency of the force to act in opposition to the applied load.