Forces and potential energy

Before we start on the main topic of the day, let's take a brief detour to investigate the combination of work and time that we call "power:"

• Work and time yield power

Okay, back to the connection between work and potential energy.

You already know one connection between forces (Newtons) and energy (Joules): work is the integral of (force dot displacement). We can turn this upside down, so to speak, to see another connection.

• A connection between gravitational force and GPE
• A connection between spring force and SPE
• The general connection between force and potential energy

Let's use potential energy to analyze the properties of simple spaceship.

• Designing a rocket to go to Mars (this is a very, very simplified version of a rather complicated real-world problem, as we will see later)

Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.