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Course: Oscillations and waves (Essentials) - Class 11th > Unit 2
Lesson 3: How does energy change as a particle oscillates?- Energy graphs for simple harmonic motion
- Analyzing energy for a simple harmonic oscillator from graphs
- Analyzing energy for a simple harmonic oscillator from data tables
- Energy of simple harmonic oscillator review
- Worked example: Energy in a Simple Harmonic Motion
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Energy graphs for simple harmonic motion
Sal graphs elastic potential energy and kinetic energy for a mass on a spring and compares the total energy when with and without dissipative forces (friction).
Want to join the conversation?
- While I was completing the practice questions for 'analyzing energy for a simple harmonic oscillator from data tables' there were a lot of questions that asked for the max potential/kinetic energy and I would find it by using the formula K=1/2mv^2 and my answer would be 0.01 higher than their answer which they got from the formula for potential energy U=1/2kx^2.
What is the difference? Does it have something to do with the fact that I was dealing with box and spring oscillators?(6 votes) - Is the graph Sal drew for the energy the absolute value graph of cosine or is it simply a cosine graph shifted upwards? And why would it be one over the other?(2 votes)
- energy of simple harmonic motion(2 votes)
- How can the mass of the box be calculated from a kinetic energy time graph?(2 votes)
- Hi, I wanted one advice. I am preparing for AP physics 2 exam. Although I study on khan academy, I wanted to do more practice for AP physics 2. can anyone suggest that which book is best to prepare for AP physics 2.(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] What I have drawn here, is a mass sitting on
a frictionless surface that is attached to a spring
that is attached to the wall, and what we're going to do is we're going to compress the spring. We're going to get the mass to position A. Right now it's at position zero. We're going to get it to position A. And then at time equals
zero, we are going to let go. And so you can imagine
what's going to happen, especially with this mass
on a frictionless surface. It's going to oscillate between position A and position negative A, and we have that depicted right here on this position versus time graph. It'll start at position A,
and then it will oscillate to the left to position negative A and then oscillate to the
right to position A again, on and on and on forever, if we're dealing with a
world that is frictionless. Like I said, frictionless surface, and let's also assume no air resistance. So that is all very interesting, but what we want to think
about in this video is how that might relate to energy. So given the information
that I've just given you, let's start thinking about
elastic potential energy. Remember, at time equals zero,
the box is at position A, so our spring is compressed. And we're dealing with
a box-spring system, so the combined system of
the box and the spring. And we're going to assume
that there is no added energy that's added to or taken
away from this system. So right at time zero, when
we have the spring compressed, that box-spring system is gonna have some elastic potential energy. And so let's put that right over there. And then what's going to
happen when we let go? Well, the box is going to be pushed by the spring towards the left. Actually, is going to be
accelerated to the left. And right when the box crosses
the x position of zero, which we see happens at
time equals one second, all of our potential energy is going to be converted
to kinetic energy. And so our potential energy is
going to be right over here. And then what happens is the box starts getting decelerated by the spring, and it gets to position negative A. Well, at position negative A, which we see happens at
time equals two seconds, well, then we are back to having our maximum potential energy again. So we're back to having our
maximum potential energy at time equals two seconds, with is associated with
being at position negative A. And so you can see where this is going. At three seconds, all of that
potential energy is back, converted to kinetic energy. At four seconds, we
are back at position A. It's back into potential energy again. And so the graph of our
elastic potential energy is going to look something like this. It's going to look something like, this is a hand-drawn version
of it, but you, I think, get the general idea of
what's going on here. Notice it is not getting negative, and so it would look something like that. Now what about kinetic energy? Well, I've already made
some reference to it, but let's think about how
that would trend over time. At time equal zero, when
the box is at position A, right at that moment, we aren't going to have any
kinetic energy just yet. But then the box is
going to be accelerated as that potential energy is
turned into kinetic energy, and we are our maximum kinetic energy when the box crosses position zero. Well, the first time it
crosses position zero is at time equals one second. So we have our maximum kinetic
energy right over there. And then when we get to time equals two, our box is at position negative A. We no longer, for a moment,
we won't have any velocity, and our kinetic energy is gone. And so you can see how this is going. We keep switching between
potential and kinetic energy as the box keeps oscillating
between position A and position negative A. Once again, this is my
hand-drawn depiction of it. So that is our kinetic energy. Now, when we first introduced
ourselves to energy and the law of conservation of energy, we saw that, hey, look if
we are in a closed system and there are no dissipative forces and we're not adding energy or taking away energy
from that closed system and if we're just dealing with
mechanical energy and this, and non-dissipative forces, well, then mechanical
energy should be conserved. If we say that the total
mechanical energy of the system E is equal to our potential energy, which, in this case, is all
elastic potential energy, plus our kinetic energy,
this should be constant. And it is indeed the case. If, at any point in time, you were to add these two curves up, you would get something
that looks like this. It would just be a constant line, and that would be the graph of our mechanical potential energy. Now, an interesting question is, what if we did have dissipative forces? What would things look like then? Well, if we had dissipative forces, say friction or air resistance, well, then the box might
start at position A, but then it wouldn't get
all the way to negative A. It might look something like this. It might start here, but it might not get all
the way to negative A. And then it would get
even not as far this time, and then it would get, and I'm trying to draw
it as best as I can, and then it would get
even not as far that time. And if we think about
it in terms of energy, the total mechanical
energy would decrease. Where is it going? Well, it is being transformed
into thermal energy by the dissipative forces of
friction and air resistance. So the total energy would decrease, and then this would define the
envelope for the oscillations for the potential energy
and the kinetic energy. So, for example, the kinetic
energy in that situation would look like this. It would look like, it would look like this, where the peaks are going
to be bounded by this total, by this total mechanical energy. So I will leave you there. Hopefully this gives you a sense of how potential energy, kinetic energy, especially when you're dealing
with a spring-block system, how they relate to each other, especially in relation to the
law of conservation of energy.