Work and the Conservation of Energy

Nirmaan Shanker
October 2015

Introduction

For the past two set of notes, we have been working exclusively with forces to help us analyze and make predictions
about various systems. While using F~ = m~a is a very useful tool in understanding several situations, it can become
awfully tedious in many other situations to apply. So in this lecture, we turn to another lens in which to look at
problems: conservation laws. The basic idea of conservation laws is that a certain quantity is conserved (obviously)
and we exploit this conserved quantity to gain information about the system. Over the next couple of weeks, we
will be looking at conservation of energy and conservation of momentum to help us solve various types of problems.
Well start the discussion of conservation laws with a in-depth discussion of work and energy.

2
2.1

Energy
Conservation of Energy

Energy is a rather difficult term to define due to its abstract nature. However, we can try to understand it as the
ability to do something. For example, if I want to shoot a basketball, I need energy to shoot the basketball into
the net. After I shoot the basketball, the energy is removed from the basketball and quickly gets transmitted to its
surroundings such as sound and thermal energy. But where did I get the energy to shoot the basketball? Well, it
came from the energy stored in chemical bonds within my body. This example leads us to see that the total energy
seems to be constant. This leads us to the law of conservation of energy, which simply states that the total
energy of an isolated system remains constant. This also shows why we would care about energy. It serves as an
effective book-keeping tool for us in physics.

2.2

Mechanical Energy

In this lecture, we will primarily be looking at mechanical energy. Mechanical energy is the energy which is associated
with the motion and position of the object. There are two types of mechanical energy: kinetic and potential energy.
Kinetic energy is defined to be the energy of motion and can be quantified as 21 mv 2 . On the other hand, potential
energy is the energy which is associated with the position of an object. We will get a better understanding of potential
energy after we introduce the notion of work.

3
3.1

Work
Work-Kinetic Energy Theorem in One-Dimension

Lets break away from our qualitative discussion of energy for a brief while and talk about work. We define work as
the following in one-dimension (well extend to three-dimensions soon):
W = F x

Let us briefly consider a scenario where we are pushing a box of mass m a distance of x by a force F . Well also
impose a restriction that the box is travelling at a constant acceleration, so that we can use kinematic relations. The
kinematic relation that I will invoke is the following:
vf2 vi2 = 2ax
With a little bit of algebraic manipulation, we see that the following relationship exists:
1
m(vf2 vi2 )
2
W = K

W = F x =

What we seem to have discovered is that work done by a force on an object is equivalent to the change in kinetic
energy of the object. This relationship is known as the work-kinetic energy theorem. This theorem should help
clear up why anyone would care about an initially obscure quantity. It helps us quantify the changes in energy of an
object.

3.2

Work-Kinetic Energy Theorem in Three-Dimensions

Above we showed a derivation of the work-kinetic energy theorem in one dimension. However, this theorem can be
generalized into two and three dimensions. Let us consider a particle that is travelling along a general path because
of a force. We will approach the calculation of work by breaking up the path into differential elements and calculate
the work done on each little piece and sum it in the end using an integral. In the one-dimensional case, we simply
defined work to be the product of the force and the displacement. But we must remember that these quantities are
vector quantities and thus cannot just be multiplied. Also it is not necessarily true that the force will point in the
same direction as the displacement vector. Thus we only want the projection (shadow) of the force vector on the
displacement vector which can be achieved via the dot product. Using the above analysis, we can therefore define
work to be:
Z

~
F~ dr.

W =
C

The type of integral that you see above is commonly referred to as a line integral. The only difference between a
line integral and regular integral is the interval of integration. You are accustomed to integrating over the x-axis.
But now with a line integral, we are integrating over any curve (a circle, a parabola, etc.). There are methods in
computing these integrals, but such level of computation is not required at this stage in your physics career.
We can now achieve the same result as in the one dimensional case through the following manipulation.
Z

~ =
F~ dr

W =

~ =
m~a dr

Z
~
dv
~
~
dr =
m~v dv
m
dt
C
C

~ are in the same direction and thus the dot product is simply equal to
In the final equation, we note that ~v and dv
the product of the magnitudes.
Z

vf

mv dv =

W =
v0

1
1
mvf2 mv02 = K
2
2

Thus, we get the same exact expression as we did in the one-dimensional case. Now lets actually calculate the work
done by a force using this integral definition. Well start off with friction

3.3

Example Calculation: Friction

Problem: A block of mass m on a table is pushed once around a circle of radius r by a force applied horizontally.
Compute the work done on the block by friction for this displacement if the coefficient of friction between the block
and the table is .
2

Solution: We know the magnitude of the constant frictional force is mg. We also know that friction and the
~ will simply be
displacement of the block will always point in opposite directions. Therefore, the dot product F~ dr
the product of the magnitudes with a negative sign. The work is then given by:
Z

~ = mg
f~ dr

W =
circ

dr

circ

The integral simply works out to summing up a bunch of differential displacement vectors which is just equivalent
to the circumference of the circle. Therefore, the total work done by friction is:
W = 2rmg

3.4

Applying the Work-Energy Theorem Example: Springs, Inclines, and a Block

Problem: A block of mass m is pushed against a spring at the bottom of an incline which is angled at an angle .
The spring, with a spring constant k, is compressed a distance of x0 . The system is released with the block at rest
and the block slides up the incline. At the points x = 0, the block detaches from the spring and continues to slide up
the incline. Assume that the incline has a coefficient of friction of . How far up the inclined plane does the block
move after detaching from the spring?
Solution: We will solve this problem using the work-energy theorem. First, we will define a coordinate system that
lies on the incline with the positive x-axis going down the incline. There are three forces in play in the horizontal
direction: the spring force (kx), friction (mg cos ), and gravity (mg sin ). The spring force will act from x0 to
0, while friction and gravity will act from x0 to d. We also note that the change in kinetic energy is 0 as the block
starts from rest and ends at rest. Therefore,

K = W
Z

0=

kx dx +
x0

mg sin dx +

mg cos dx

x0

x0

These integrals are trivial to integrate. Integrating and solving for d, we get:

0=

4
4.1

1 2
kx mg sin (d + x0 ) mg cos (d + x0 )
2 0
1
kx2
d = 2 0 x0
mg cos

Conservative Forces and Potential Energy

Conservative Forces

An important thing to note about most line integrals is that they are path-dependent even if the two paths start
and end in the same place. This is easily observed with the friction example above. When we evaluated in the
integral at the end, it was dependent on the path that the block had taken. While that example was not too bad
computationally, the more complicated the path becomes, the harder the integral becomes to evaluate.
Fortunately enough, there are forces of particular interest for which the work integral is path independent. These
forces are known as conservative forces. One easy example of a conservative force that we are acquainted to is
gravity. Lets quickly verify this using the definition of work. We will using a coordinate system where the force
vector will be F~ = h0, mg, 0i. Therefore the work done by gravity is:
Z
W =
C

~ =
F~ dr

yf

h0, mg, 0i hdx, dy, dzi =

C

mg dy = mg(yf yi )
yi

As we can see the work done by gravity only depends on the initial and final y-components of the particle, thus
indeed showing that the gravitational force is conservative. Another conservative force that you are familiar with is
the spring force (W = 12 k(x)2 ).

4.2

Defining Potential Energy

An important result of conservative vector fields from multivariable calculus is that for there exists a potential
function, f , such that
Z

fb fa =

~
F~ dr

In physics, we use this fact to introduce potential energy. Potential energy is commonly denoted by U such that
U = f . So for gravity the potential energy function would be U (y) = mgy. You may be wondering why we
introduced the negative sign, but that will be cleared in the following section.
We can also restate the work-energy theorem for conservative forces as:
Wcons = U
An important thing to note about potential energy is that we are allowed to pick where U can equal 0. This is
because the integral only gives us the difference in potential energies at two points, but never specifies which point
is 0.

4.3

Finding an expression for Force from Potential Energy

In one dimension, we know that:

Z

x2

U =

F dx
x1

But we can now use the fundamental theorem of calculus and derive an expression for force:

dU
=F
dx

Thus if we are given a potential energy function, we are able to determine the force of an object. However, this
expression should be setting off an alarm. How can a derivative of a scalar quantity give us a vector quantity? It
cant. However, in one dimension, force is essentially a scalar so this expression is okay. If we were to generalize this
to three dimensions, we would have to turn to the general form of the derivative: the gradient.
~
F~ = U
~ = h f , f , f i.
If you are curious, the gradient is defined to be f
x y z

4.4

Determining Equilibrium Positions from Potential Energy

Given a potential energy function, another thing we are able to determine are positions of equilibrium. Clearly, if
an object is in equilibrium, the net force on the object at that point must be 0. Thus, an object is said to be in
equilibrium wherever dU
dx is 0 (i.e. all the critical points of U ) . In particular, the object is said to be in stable
equilibrium if the critical point is relative minimum and in unstable equilibrium if the critical point is a relative
maximum. The nature of the critical points can of course be determined using the first and second derivative tests
from calculus.

4.5

The Return of Simple Harmonic Motion

We know that simple harmonic motion ensues when the restoring force is directly proportional to the displacement
and as well as acting opposite the direction of displacement (e.g. Hookes law). Essentially, the restoring force must
be linear to the displacement. This implies that the potential energy must be quadratic in nature. This works with
Hookes law as the potential energy of a spring is 12 kx2 . What we will now show is that if an object is perturbed
slightly from a stable equilibrium position, it will act like a harmonic oscillator.
Before we prove that statement, we will have a quick discussion on Taylor Series. Any well-defined function
f (x) can be expanded into a Taylor series about a point x0 . The basic idea of a Taylor series is that it tries to match
all the derivatives at a point (first, second, third, etc.) using a polynomial. The more number of derivatives match,
the more the Taylor polynomial approximation will match the original function.
We will try approximating a function f (x) about x0 . The simplest expression that can approximate f (x) (albeit
a bad one) is the function f0 (x) = f (x0 ). So we now have a function that matches the original function at x0 . Our
next step would be to make the first derivatives match at x0 . We can achieve that easily with the following function
f1 (x) = f (x0 ) + f 0 (x0 )(x x0 ). We can continue this pattern indefinitely. For example, the next term to make the
second derivatives match would be 21 f 00 (x0 )(x x0 )2 . Thus,
1
1
1
f (x) f (x0 ) + f 0 (x0 )(x x0 ) + f 00 (x0 )(x x0 )2 + f 000 (x0 )(x x0 )3 + ... + f (n) (x0 )(x x0 )n + ...
2
3!
n!
We will now return to proving original statement. Suppose that we now expand U (x) about the stable equilibrium
point x0 :
1
1
U (x) U (x0 ) + U 0 (x0 )(x x0 ) + U 00 (x0 )(x x0 )2 + U 000 (x0 )(x x0 )3 + ...
2
3!
This expression looks awfully complicated to simplify. However, we can simplify this expression significantly. First
of all, since x0 is a stable equilibrium point, U 0 (x0 ) must be 0. Furthermore, provided that we perturb the system
small enough, we are able to ignore the higher order terms (cubic and higher). Thus we are left with:
1
U (x) = U (x0 ) + U 00 (x0 )(x x0 )2
2
We can now find the force by taking the derivative:
F = U 00 (x0 )(x x0 )
Plugging in F = ma, we notice that we get the same differential equation as we do when we did Hookes law, which
confirms that small perturbations from stable equilibrium position results in simple harmonic motion.

0=

d2
U 00 (x0 )
(x x0 ) +
(x x0 )
2
dt
m

We can also find the frequency of the oscillation as:

r
=

U 00 (x0 )
m

Conservation of Energy

This section will introduce to a powerful method that has widespread application in physics problems. We will start
off with the Work-Energy theorem:
W = Kf Ki
5

Now the work can be broken into two pieces: the work done by conservative forces and the work done by nonconservative forces. We also know that the work done by conservative forces can be represented using potential energy
(W = U ).

Wnc + Wc = Kf Ki
Wnc + Ui Uf = Kf Ki
Rearranging, we arrive at the statement of conservation of energy.
Ui + Ki + Wnc = Kf + Uf
This equation presents us with a powerful method of solving various problems without using Newtons laws or
kinematics. This is not to say that energy will completely replace Newtons laws (you will often use both methods
concurrently in a problem), but it can serve as a faster alternative in several cases. Its also important to note that
the work-energy theorem by itself is good enough to solve these problems. But this formulation is often the preferred
way about using energy. Lets now look at a couple of examples highlighting this technique.

5.1

A Familiar Problem From Kinematics

Problem: You drop a rock from a cliff of height h. What is the velocity of the rock at the bottom of the cliff?
Solution: This is probably the first problem you learned how to solve in kinematics. But this problem can be solved
much quicker using energy. Well begin the analysis by noting that no nonconservative forces are acting in our system
and therefore Wnc = 0. The only force acting on the rock is gravity, which has a corresponding potential energy. In
order to use potential energy, we need to define where U = 0. The most convenient position would be at the bottom
of the cliff. We will now look at two snapshots of the situation: one when we drop the rock and the other is when
the rock reaches the ground. The conservation of energy statement therefore looks like this:
mgh =

1
mv 2
2

Solving for v, we get the familiar result of:

v=

2gh

I know the explanation was a little lengthy. But hopefully it gives you an idea of the mindset you need to take when
analyzing tougher scenarios.

5.2

Determining the Height of a Ramp on a Roller Coaster

Problem: A person is designing a roller coaster with a loop-de-loop of radius R and wants to determine the
minimum height of the ramp with respect to the bottom of the loop so that the cars (of mass m) can complete the
loop without falling off the ramp (which is frictionless). Determine the minimum height, h.
Solution: Clearly if the cart is to complete the loop, there must be a point in time where it is at the top of the
loop-de-loop. You may think that h must simply be 2R then as if we want the cart to barely complete the loop, the
kinetic energy of the cart at the top of the loop should be 0. However, this is incorrect as we have another constraint:
the cart must be undergoing circular motion and therefore must have a centripetal acceleration. Using F = ma, we
can find the velocity of the cart at the top of the loop (the free-body diagrams are not presented as you should be
acquainted with them):
v2
mg = m
p R
v = gR

We can now use conservation of energy to complete the problem. We will be comparing the energy of the cart at the
top of the ramp and the top of the loop. We will also set U = 0 at the bottom of the loop. The analysis is presented
below:

Ui + Ki + Wnc = Kf + Uf
1
mgh + 0 + 0 = mgR + 2mgR
2
5
h= R
2
Thus, the height of the ramp must at least be h = 52 R.

Power

Well conclude our discussion on work and energy with a brief discussion of power. Power is defined to be dW
dt . The
reason why power is so important is that it helps us keep track the rate of energy gain or loss. We can derive another
expression for power by using our definition for work.

P (t) =

dW
d
=
dt
dt

~ = d
F~ dr
dt
C

F~ ~v dt = F~ ~v

We can also find the work done if we know the power function. The relationship is shown below:
Z

t2

W =

P (t) dt
t1