Lecture

Rolling a Cube

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Description

This lecture covers the physics of rolling a cube on a surface with friction, analyzing the static and dynamic situations, determining the conditions for the cube to lift off and not slide, and demonstrating the conservation of mechanical energy.

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Related concepts (26)

Force

In physics, a force is an influence that can cause an object to change its velocity, i.e., to accelerate, unless counterbalanced by other forces. The concept of force makes the everyday notion of pushing or pulling mathematically precise. Because the magnitude and direction of a force are both important, force is a vector quantity. It is measured in the SI unit of newton (N) and often represented by the symbol F.

Statics

Statics is the branch of classical mechanics that is concerned with the analysis of force and torque acting on a physical system that does not experience an acceleration, but rather, is in static equilibrium with its environment. If is the total of the forces acting on the system, is the mass of the system and is the acceleration of the system, Newton's second law states that (the bold font indicates a vector quantity, i.e. one with both magnitude and direction). If , then .

Molecular dynamics

Molecular dynamics (MD) is a computer simulation method for analyzing the physical movements of atoms and molecules. The atoms and molecules are allowed to interact for a fixed period of time, giving a view of the dynamic "evolution" of the system. In the most common version, the trajectories of atoms and molecules are determined by numerically solving Newton's equations of motion for a system of interacting particles, where forces between the particles and their potential energies are often calculated using interatomic potentials or molecular mechanical force fields.

Mechanical energy

In physical sciences, mechanical energy is the sum of potential energy and kinetic energy. The principle of conservation of mechanical energy states that if an isolated system is subject only to conservative forces, then the mechanical energy is constant. If an object moves in the opposite direction of a conservative net force, the potential energy will increase; and if the speed (not the velocity) of the object changes, the kinetic energy of the object also changes.

Comparative statics

In economics, comparative statics is the comparison of two different economic outcomes, before and after a change in some underlying exogenous parameter. As a type of static analysis it compares two different equilibrium states, after the process of adjustment (if any). It does not study the motion towards equilibrium, nor the process of the change itself. Comparative statics is commonly used to study changes in supply and demand when analyzing a single market, and to study changes in monetary or fiscal policy when analyzing the whole economy.

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