What Energy Changes Occur When a Vehicle Accelerates on a Horizontal Road?

Click For Summary
When a vehicle accelerates on a horizontal road, it experiences a transformation of energy primarily from chemical energy in fuel to kinetic energy of motion. The engine converts fuel into kinetic energy, enabling the vehicle to move. As the vehicle accelerates, it requires additional energy input to overcome friction and air resistance, which also involves energy changes. Maintaining constant speed necessitates continuous energy input due to these opposing forces. Understanding these energy transformations is essential for grasping the dynamics of vehicle motion.
fork
Messages
23
Reaction score
0
Describe the energy changes involved when the vehicle is accelerating along the horizontal road.

I don't know what are the energy changes during the process. Thanks.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
When you speak of an object in motion, it has Kinetic Energy associated with it.
 
fork said:
Describe the energy changes involved when the vehicle is accelerating along the horizontal road.

I don't know what are the energy changes during the process. Thanks.


I suggest you think deeply about the problem, starting from asking a few questions. A few questions always leads to a few answers, and inevitably much more questions (ad infinitum, but such is the nature of learning). I would start by asking myself; how is the car even moving at all? Of course, that's an easy one to answer, because I put gas into it. But how does gas help me in understanding how the vehicle moves? Well, that's easy too, the gas gets turned into the kinetic energy of the car via the engine (energy by virtue of the cars motion.) Then you can follow that up with another question being, why must i hold down the pedal to keep the car at a constant speed, since the car keeps slowing down by itself? This involves another energy change, and I'm sure you can figure it out.
 
The book claims the answer is that all the magnitudes are the same because "the gravitational force on the penguin is the same". I'm having trouble understanding this. I thought the buoyant force was equal to the weight of the fluid displaced. Weight depends on mass which depends on density. Therefore, due to the differing densities the buoyant force will be different in each case? Is this incorrect?

Similar threads

  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
949
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
2K
Replies
11
Views
1K
Replies
1
Views
2K
  • · Replies 12 ·
Replies
12
Views
4K
  • · Replies 12 ·
Replies
12
Views
2K
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
3K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
2K
  • · Replies 102 ·
4
Replies
102
Views
7K
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
2K