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Roo2
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Homework Statement
I'm reading Feynman's lectures on physics to brush up on material I haven't looked at in a while, and I got confused by one of his statements. He claims that the change in potential energy of an object traveling down a slope can be calculated solely by the change in gravitational potential between the starting and ending point, irrespective of the force of constraint. While this seems intuitively correct to me, I'm confused by his explanation, in which he states that the work by gravity is nonzero (mgΔh) while the work done by the force of constraint is zero. To illustrate this, he provides the figure below, to which I have added an x-axis for reference:
I'm confused because work is f*dr. Clearly, the object travels along the y-axis (I forgot to label, but assume perpendicular to x) and the force of gravity has an (entirely) y component, so f*dy is a nonzero number. However, the resultant force is shown to have an x component, and the direction of motion also has an x component, so f*dx is also nonzero. Why is the work done by the resultant force considered to be zero?
Homework Equations
W = f*dr
U(grav) = -G(m1m2/r^2) =~ mgh
The Attempt at a Solution
Described above.
Not a homework question per se, but I figured that it resembles a homework question more so than a "real" physics discussion in the general physics forum.
Thanks for any help!