1) Work & (Non) Conservative forces John is pushing a 30 kg sofa across a carpet floor. He must overcome a 150 N frictional force to keep the sofa moving. a) How much work has John done if he pushing the sofa 5 metres to the right of its original position? b) How much total work has John done if he then pushes the sofa back to its original position?
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Mass of sofa = 30 kg (not needed here), frictional force f = 150 N (opposes motion), displacement for each leg = 5.0 m. Show more…
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You are rearranging the furniture in your living room. In doing so, you push a $30 \mathrm{~kg}$ sofa to the left a total distance of $2 \mathrm{~m}$ and then you push it back to the right a distance of $1 \mathrm{~m}$. The coefficient of kinetic friction between the sofa and the hardwood floor is 0.2 . (a) What is the work done by friction in moving the sofa? (b) Suppose that you had instead simply moved the sofa to its final position by moving it directly $1 \mathrm{~m}$ to the left. What is the work done by friction in this case? (c) From the results you obtained in parts (a) and (b), what can you conclude about the nature of the friction force? Is it a conservative force? Explain.
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