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Conservation Laws
The laws of motion and force are often difficult to
apply in complicated situations (for example, when a
stick of dynamite explodes). Fortunately, nature seems
to obey some additional rules that are less specific.
These usually do not describe every detail, but they do
predict certain features of the changes in nature and help
us arrive at a correct understanding of them.
Among these general laws are the conservation
laws. A quantity that does not change is said to be conserved. Such a quantity is something like a set of childrens blocks. Although the blocks might be scattered
all over the house, yard, car, neighbors property, and
schoolroom, the number of blocks always stays the
same. The law of conservation of blocks would
describe the conditions when the number of blocks
would not change, and also the situations when a
change would be expected to occur (for example, when
the parents purchase a new set of blocks).
This chapter discusses several quantities that are conserved: mass, charge, linear momentum, angular momentum, and energy. Several others might have been included, but these are the most important for our purposes.
Figure 7.1. Account for all the mass before and after
these events. Is mass conserved?
The Law of Conservation of Mass is stated here as
it was understood at the beginning of the 20th century.
An amplification of the statement became necessary
when Einstein discovered an unsuspected connection
between mass and energy. We will discuss this modification in Chapter 9. Until that point you should take the
Law of Conservation of Mass to be strictly true. The
modification discussed in Chapter 9 does not affect in a
practical way the applications we will discuss in this
and most subsequent chapters.
Conservation of Mass
Cursory observations tell us that matter comes and
goes in unpredictable and arbitrary ways. A piece of
wood burns and seems to be destroyed, leaving only a
small pile of ashes behind; water seems to disappear
from an open pan on a warm day; a tree grows, apparently from nothing.
However, careful measurements reveal that total
mass does not change in any of these transformations; it
merely changes form. For example, if wood is burned
in a closed box, the total mass of the contents of the box
does not change. The wood and oxygen initially present
have merely changed to carbon dioxide, water vapor,
and ashes (Fig. 7.1). These observations lead to the
Law of Conservation of Mass:
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The words positive and negative are just labels to identify the two kinds of charge, which gives us an easy way
to keep track of natures conservation rule. To understand the rule more completely, try substituting the
labels red and green for positive and negative in the
statement of the conservation law.
Nature obeys the conservation law in some rather
unexpected situations. For example, a neutron isolated
from a nucleus becomes unstable and splits after a short
time into a proton and an electron. One unit of each kind
of charge is produced, so charge is conserved (Fig. 7.2).
PROTON
NEUTRON
NEUTRINO
ELECTRON
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Force
Force
Object
Object
Axis
Axis
(a)
(b)
Kinetic Energy
1
kinetic energy ! ## " mass " speed 2.
2
If a truck has three times the mass of a small car
going the same speed, it will have three times the kinetic energy; consequently, the truck will cause about three
times as much damage in a collision (Fig. 7.4). The fact
that speed is squared in this formula means that energy
increases rapidly with speed. For example, a car going
80 kilometers/hour has four times as much kinetic energy as one going 40 kilometers/hour.
Forms of Energy
Figure 7.4. Why can a fast truck do more damage than
a slow car?
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Kinetic
energy
Gravitational
potential
energy
Total
energy
Internal Energy
Recall for a moment the example of the falling ball
in our discussion of gravitational energy. The ball has
its original kinetic energy just before striking the earth.
Figure 7.6. Objects that repel each other go faster as they move apart. In which situation is the kinetic energy largest?
When is the electrical potential energy largest?
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It then hits the ground, bounces a few times, and eventually comes to rest. What has happened to its energy?
It has no kinetic energy, because it is not moving. It has
no gravitational potential energy, because it has no
height. It appears that the energy has been lost.
This kind of puzzle has confronted people ever
since the concept of energy was suggested. We must
either find the energy somewhere in a different form or
admit that energy is not conserved. The solution to such
puzzles has always been found by carefully examining
what is involved in the situation and finding some other
change that has occurred. The change is associated with
a new form of energy.
In the case of a falling ball which strikes a floor, the
ball (and, to a lesser degree, the floor) is deformed by
the collision. Furthermore, the floor and the ball are
both warmer than they were just before the ball hit.
These temperature changes are so small that we usually
do not notice them. If you doubt their reality, try stopping your car quickly (for example, from 50 kilometers/hour or so) and then stepping out and carefully
touching one of the tires. The tires high temperature
Figure 7.7. What happens to the kinetic energy of a car when it suddenly stops?
reveals where the original kinetic energy of the car has
gone (Fig. 7.7).
The energy in each of these cases converts to a
form called internal energy. Internal energy gets its
name from the fact that it is energy that seems to be hidden inside materials. We cannot measure it by any
external measurement, such as height or speed; only
careful measurements of the state of the material itself
reveal internal energy.
Thermal energy is a form of internal energy associated with the temperature of materials. The thermal
energy of any object or material increases as its temperature increases. The warmer ball and ground and the
hotter tire in the examples above illustrate increases in
thermal energy.
Chemical potential energy is a form of internal
energy associated with the physical and chemical states
of a material. Chemical potential energy is the name
given to the electrical potential energy of the atoms in a
material. Physical and chemical reactions result in a
rearrangement of the atoms of which a material is composed; this in turn causes changes in the electrical
potential energy of the atoms in the material. Another
example is that the chemical potential energy of gasoline and oxygen molecules is higher than would be the
chemical potential energy of the same atoms rearranged
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amount of energy that is transferred by work is sometimes referred to as the work done or the amount of
work. Thus, it is correct to say when lifting a rock that
you did work on the rock or when sliding a book that
friction did work on the book. However, it is a conceptual error to refer to the amount of work possessed by the
rock or by the book. They have energynot work.
The amount of work done by a force, and, hence,
the amount of energy transferred, is given by the product of the strength of the force and the distance that the
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ENERGY
MACROSCOPIC
MICROSCOPIC
(Large-scale)
ENERGY INPUT
Heat Conduction
Radiation
Convection
Work
(Internal)
Kinetic energy
Thermal energy
Gravitational
potential energy
Chemical
potential energy
Electrical
potential energy
ENERGY OUTPUT
Heat Conduction
Radiation
Convection
Work
Rest-mass energy
TRANSFORMATION
Work, Chemical Reaction
Figure 7.10. The forms of energy in a systemany object or collection of objects. The total energy of the system can
be changed only by adding or removing energy through one or more of the energy transfer processes. The form of energy in the system can be changed by the transformation processes of work or combustion.
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Historical Perspectives
Summary
Mass, electric charge, linear momentum, angular
momentum, and energy are quantities that are conserved
within any given system. The laws of conservation are
useful, particularly in phenomena where changes occur,
because they represent a constant in the face of change.
Mass occurs in one form, charge in two forms, and
energy in several forms. Energy exists in various forms:
kinetic energy, gravitational potential energy, electrical
potential energy, thermal energy, and chemical potential
energy. The energy transfer and transformation
processes are work, heat conduction, radiation, convection, and chemical reactions.
Conservation of mass implies that mass does not
change when materials burn, freeze (even though they
change size), evaporate, explode, dissolve in other materials, or undergo any other physical or chemical change.
Electric charge is conserved, for example, when a
rubber rod is rubbed with fur. Before the rubbing, both
rod and fur are neutral; the total charge is zero.
Afterward the rod has a negative charge and the fur an
equal positive charge; the total charge is still zero.
The separation of charge in a thundercloud illustrates the same principle. The water droplets that make
up the forming cloud are originally uncharged. Several
mechanisms cause a separation of charge, with the top
of the cloud positive and the bottom negative.
However, the total charge remains zero.
Conservation of energy is illustrated by virtually
every process that occurs spontaneously in nature or is
caused to happen by mans technology. The following
are just a few of the many that could be cited:
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3.
4.
5.
STUDY GUIDE
Chapter 7: Conservation Laws
A. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
1. The Conservation of Mass: Mass is neither created nor destroyed. The total amount of mass of an
isolated system does not change. Mass may change
from one form to another, but the total mass after
the transformation is always the same as that
before. (This principle of the 19th century had to be
modified when the Special Theory of Relativity
established an unsuspected connection between
mass and energy. Strictly speaking, it is mass-energy that is conserved.)
2. The Conservation of Electric Charge: The total
amount of positive charge minus the total amount
of negative charge of an isolated system does not
change.
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6.
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8.
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10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
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7.28. Describe the energy transfer and transformation processes that occur in Exercise 7.13.
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