# Dot product of Force and Position as a constant of motion - physical significance?

by sam guns
Tags: constant, force, motion, physical, position, product, significance
 P: 3 Reason I posted this in the maths help forum is that an equation of this form randomly popped up in a homework I was doing on differential geometry. I started with a one-form ω=dβ (β is a scalar function) and found that if for a random vector v, ω(v) = 0, then $\frac{d}{dt} \left( \gamma^{i}\frac{\partial\beta}{\partial x^{i}} \right) = 0$ where γ is the integral curve of v (aka the position if you interpret v as a velocity) If you interpret the scalar field β as a potential field, then this says that the dot product of position and force is a constant of motion. Understanding it is not really significant to what I am expected to turn in, but regardless, does it have any physical significance? 1. The problem statement, all variables and given/known data
 PF Patron HW Helper Sci Advisor Thanks P: 25,457 hi sam! welcome to pf! it looks like the formula for a bead sliding along a frictionless rod forced to rotate (irregularly) about a pivot but, so far as i know, it has no practical significance
 P: 3 Thanks for your reply! It's kind of what I suspected, for a second I thought it could be some important constant of motion related to the virial theorem or something like that, but I couldn't find anything in my old mechanics textbooks. I guess it's just a curiosity then :)

 Related Discussions Classical Physics 5 Introductory Physics Homework 9 Quantum Physics 35 Quantum Physics 5 General Physics 4