2.02 Newtonian Monster Roller Coaster: Kinetic Energy

Introduction
Lesson
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Review & Tasks

Following successful completion of this lesson, students will be able to:

Relate the law of conservation of energy to transformations of potential energy, kinetic energy, and thermal energy.
Relate simple formulas to the calculation of potential energy, kinetic energy and work.

Introduction

What happens to the gravitational potential energy as we coast down the hill? The car moves faster and faster. As we descend, the gravitational potential energy is changing to kinetic energy.

roller coaster descending
Image courtesy of flickr user yr_wht_knight. This image is protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license.