Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Law of conservation of energy in bouncing ball

The law of conservation of energy states that energy can not be created nor destroyed . It can just be transformed or transferred from one form to another . That means the amount of energy exist on this earth is always the same .


Taking the example of a dropped ball , when the ball is in the air , it has gravitational potential energy . When the ball is released , its potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy .

When the ball hits the ground , it becomes deformed and gains potential energy once again and bounces and again its potential energy is converted into kinetic energy .

I had always wondered why is the height of the bounces , the ball experiance is lower than the previous ones ?

The energy transformation is not just between potential and kinetic energy . As I said , when dropped , it hits the ground . It always makes a sound . It also has to face air resistance . Hence friction force also comes to picture .

Because of all these factors , the new potential energy which it will gain after hitting ground is comparatively lower than its earlier " rest " position .

Hence the height of bounce will go on reducing . Finally , when all the potential energy contained in it becomes zero , it will stop bouncing and comes to stand still position.

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