Working out energy change during change of moment of inertia

[govinda]

there's a standard question about the spinning dancer who pulls her hands inward reducing her moment of inertia and increasing her ang. velocity . it seems she had to do some work against the centrifugal force (from momentum and energy equations)
i thought of a simpler example to check if the amt of work that needs to be done agianst the force is indeed equal to the change in energy .considering a particle insted of the ballerina moving in a circle i worked out the work necassary using integral of force times distance moved . i substiuted values for ang. vel. since it isn't constant(from cons of ang momentum eq.) and it worked out to be a logarthmic expression . the change in energy from the first approach was different( no log term) . i have a feeling i have made some fundamental mistake . the calculations seem ok.,
govinda

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[Doc Al]

I don't know how you got a logarithmic expression.

Take the simpler case of a mass on a string, rotating on a frictionless table. Let the string pass through a hole in the center of the table, which is the axis of rotation. The string is pulled from below, drawing the mass closer to the center. Calculate the work done by direct integration of the string tension and compare to the the change in KE found from conservation of angular momentum. They should be equal.