Potential Energy

Potential energy is energy associated with the configuration of an object or a system.  Since it can be entirely converted to kinetic energy, an operational way to determine potential energy is to let the system evolve from an unknown configuration to a known configuration and measure the kinetic energy.  You can use this technique to measure and plot potential energy functions, U(x).

• Find and sketch the potential energy as a function of position for both interactions.

Procedure: Reset will initialize the system to a known potential energy. This initial configuration has been marked with a small red dot.   Assume this configuration has zero potential energy U_o = 0 and the the object has a mass of 1 kg. Use the mouse to move the object to a new position and release it.  The object will have zero initial velocity when the mouse is released.  If the object returns to the original position you can record the velocity and calculate the kinetic energy.   This kinetic energy must have come from the potential energy at the new position if the interaction is conservative.

Note: Animation will stop after 100 s. 

Production notes and screen shots:

Answers:

• Interaction 1: The interaction is uniform for x>0 and uniform for x<0.  However, the interaction has different strengths depending on the sign of x.
• Interactions 2:  The interaction models a spring if x<0.  The interaction is zero if x=> 0.

Credits:
Problem by Wolfgang Christian
Script by Wolfgang Christian