Physics Asked on May 28, 2021
I read in my textbook that the potential energy is a system property. In case of gravitational potential energy, the potential energy is a shared property of both the body and the earth. The value of potential energy increases if the earth stays fixed and body moves upward, away from earth; it also increases if the body stays fixed and the earth is moved away from it.
My doubt is if we fix the earth and move the body away from it and calculate the work done and later fix the body and move the earth away the same distance, won’t the work done and hence the potential energy will be more in the latter case since a large amount of force will be required to move the earth (because of its large mass) through the same displacement?
The task would not be difficult in the latter case but would be slow. According to the newton's law of gravitation two bodies attract each other with a force of
$$overrightarrow{F}= GMm/R^{2}$$
Where M is mass of body and m is mass of the other body Now let mass of Earth to be M and mass of object m. So
$overrightarrow{F}_{earth}= GMm/R^{2}$........................(1)
$overrightarrow{F}=Moverrightarrow{a}$.............................(2)
so from 1 and 2 $$overrightarrow{a}=Gm/R^{2}$$ and for the object it will be $overrightarrow{a}=GM/R^{2}$ So as the mass of earth is very large hence the accleration of object will be very great compared to accleration of earth.
Also Work done by an external agent
$$ W= int_a^b ! overrightarrow{F}. , mathrm{d}overrightarrow{x}$$
Now as force and displacement both are equal so work done will also be equal
Answered by Anonymous on May 28, 2021
To move the Earth, we have to exceed the force of gravity to get it started. Because of its larger mass, its acceleration due to a given applied force will be less than that of the smaller object. So yes, it will be harder to move. The applied force can be broken into two parts: the force to oppose the gravitational force on the Earth and the extra force required to accelerate the Earth. The work done by this applied force in moving the Earth through a given distance will also consists of two parts: the work done against the gravitational force, which will increase the gravitational potential energy of the Earth-object system, and the work done by the rest of the applied force which increases the Earth's kinetic energy.
If we consider the case where the Earth is moved to a new fixed position without any kinetic energy there then all the work done goes into increasing the Earth-object potential energy. As @Pranav Aggarwal points out, the work done against gravity in moving either object a given distance is equal as the forces on each object are equal and the gravitational potential energy of the Earth-object system is increased by the same amount.
Answered by Not_Einstein on May 28, 2021
Your question's premise is that a larger force is required to move the earth distance d away from the smaller mass, compared to the force required to move the smaller mass distance d from the earth. There are three points you should keep in mind:
Answered by lamplamp on May 28, 2021
Get help from others!
Recent Answers
Recent Questions
© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP