Mission WE5: Force and Energy

Mission WE5 pertains to the concepts of conservative and non-conservative forces and the effect such forces have upon the total mechanical energy when they are doing work. The mission consists of 40 questions organized into 10 Question Groups. You must answer one question from each Question Group to complete the mission. The learning outcomes for this mission are ...
 

Learning Outcomes

• The student should be able to categorize forces as being conservative or non-conservative and explain the significance of such a categorization scheme.
• The student should be able to predict whether an object's total mechanical energy would be conserved or not conserved based upon the types of forces which are doing work upon the object.

 

Launch Mission WE5

 

Getting Help

If you are not familiar with this topic, then you should first learn about the topic using our written Tutorial or our Video Tutorial:
 

The Physics Classroom - Work, Energy and Power Unit, Lesson 2, Part a
 

• What types of forces are internal (i.e., conservative) and what types are external (i.e., non-conservative)?
• What is the relationship between the type of force doing work and whether or not mechanical energy is conserved?
• How can a description of a physical situation allow one to predict if the total mechanical energy of an object will be conserved?

 

Video Tutorials:

Forces, Energy, and System Analysis

 

 

Question-Specific Help

Each Question Group has its own Help page with information specific to the question. You can access the Help page from within the mission by tapping on the Help Me! icon (textbook). For your convenience, links to those pages are provided below: