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| ``Potential Energy and Conservation of Energy''
by greame on 2011-01-05 02:55:54 |
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| In light of the Conservation of Energy principle, what would happen to the potential energy of the Earth's moon, or any satellite of Earth, if the mass of the Earth were instantaneously reduced by half? That is, is potential energy conserved, is it transferred to another form of energy or is it simply "lost" (not destroyed, but removed from consideration) by virtue of the fact that the potential energy reference body, i.e., the Earth, has been changed? In this ridiculous, hypothetical situation I would expect that the kinetic energy of the moon would cause it to move off is some curved path since the gravitational influence of the Earth would have been reduced but not eliminated.
http://www.simplyearplugs.co.uk |
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