BELIEVE ME NOT! - 
- A SKEPTIC's GUIDE
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Up: Potential Energy
Previous: Conservative Forces
What about not-so-conservative forces?
In the real world a lot of energy gets dissipated
through what is loosely known as friction.
Nowhere will you find an entirely satisfactory definition
of precisely what friction is, so I won't feel guilty about
using the cop-out and saying that it is the cause of all
work that does not "get stored up as potential energy."
That is, when I do work against frictional forces,
it will not reappear as kinetic energy when I "let go."
Where does it go? We have already started getting used to
the notion that energy is conserved, so it is disturbing
to find some work just being lost. Well, relax.
The energy dissipated by work against friction is still around
in the form of heat, which is something like
disordered potential and kinetic energy.11.14
We will talk more about heat a few chapters later.
Jess H. Brewer -
Last modified: Sat Nov 14 12:45:12 PST 2015