- #1
- 8
- 0
Can somebody please help me understand conservative and non-conservative forces? My teacher didn't really spend too much time teaching it. Can somebody explain it in the simplest terms possible?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_forceCan somebody please help me understand conservative and non-conservative forces? My teacher didn't really spend too much time teaching it. Can somebody explain it in the simplest terms possible?
Isn't that just a convention?In addition, the potential energy can only be defined for the (minus) work of a conservative force.
I guess the sign is conventional (although i don't think anyone's going to change it now) and also you can add an arbitrary constant to the potential energy and get the same physical results, since the quantities of interest are energy differences.Isn't that just a convention?