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Physics 132 - General
Physics II - Professor
Bunson
Fall 2001
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Today's Lecture (9/12): |
| Summary: |
- When learning classical mechanics, problems
could often be solved much easier using kinetic and potential
energy rather than forces. The potential
energy difference between two points is defined as the negative of
the work needed to get from one to the other:
- With electrostatic forces, we can define a potential
energy, but there is sign problem. Whenever positive charges are
gaining potential energy, negative charges are losing potential energy,
and vice versa. This leads to the concept
of electrostatic potential, which will allow us to find the
potential energy for either type of charge.
- The electric potential is defined via the potential
energy of a test charge, analogous to the electric field definition.
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| Conceptests: |
Today's conceptests
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| Worked Problems: |
None today.
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| Links: |
None today.
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Assignments: |
Next
Reading Assignment (due 9/14)
Next
Homework (due 9/19)
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Diversion-of-the-week: |
Here's one of my favorite diversions:
juggling. This website
will show you how. If you want some tips on this, ask me at the physics
picnic this weekend.
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Page last updated on
August 15, 2001.
Please contact the WebEditor
with site-related questions.
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