- #1
sgstudent
- 739
- 3
Energy is the capacity to do work. So if I have energy I can do work. But if a rock has 100J from falling down a building to push a pillar into the ground, it might not have enough energy to have any work done to push it in. So what happens to that 100Js? Ignoring air resistance. Since energy can neither be destroyed or created so I'm unsure where energy that isn't used has gone. I'm theorizing that heat and sound is produced from the impact and that's the energy dissipated but I'm not completely sure about it. I'm unsure if the friction of the pillar constitutes into this. But then again work done against friction also requires a distance which is 0 when the pillar doesn't move. Thanks for the help! :)