Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Ch6_3 #3

See Ch6 Sheet 24 for the exact expression of the Gravitational Potential Energy. Use it to calculate the change in potential energy, the difference in potential energy for the 2 positions. Compare this with mgh, which is an approximate change of the potential energy neglecting the variation of g along the path of the object (See Ch 6 Sheet 24').

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

" ...to a height of 900kg" ?

Anonymous said...

it should be "to a height of 900km". I used 900km instead of 900kg,then I got the right answer.

Anonymous said...

i cannot seem to get this right...

[(GmM/r)exact-(mgh)approx.]/(GmM/r)exact

is that how to set this up to find the relative error?

Anonymous said...

Yes, although it could also be (approx-exact)/exact

Hobbs said...

But for exact calculation, you need to use the *difference* between the potentials for the two positions, as stated in the problem. For the approximate, in the expression mgh, h is the height relative to the starting position

Anonymous said...

I'm having trouble too. Can you use the height relative to the ground for both the approximation and exact formula? Because when I do that and calculate the relative error it gives a value of 0.30 which isn't the right answer.

Alex said...

I am really unable to solve this problem as well. I set it up as [(GmM/r)exact-(mgh)approx.]/(GmM/r)exact....in which r=radius of the earth + h. I cant seem to get this right.

Anonymous said...

i did everything that these comments say to do but i cant get the right answer. can someone help me

Anonymous said...

plz help!! the comments arent working out for me

Anonymous said...

Please help. We only have an hour left.

Anonymous said...

use (GM/r(actual)-gh(approx)/(GM/r)

make sure that you convert h to meters.