Question

How do you tell if a force is conservative?
Figured it out!

Answer 1

conservative force are those force whose work done is indeoendent of the path taken but depend only on the intial and final position

Answer 2

Yes, I understand that, but I don't know how to interpret that with the following equations.

Answer 3

A conservative force is a force with the property that the work done in moving a particle between two points is independent of the taken path.[1] Equivalently, if a particle travels in a closed loop, the net work done (the sum of the force acting along the path multiplied by the distance travelled) by a conservative force is zero.[2]

A conservative force is dependent only on the position of the object. If a force is conservative, it is possible to assign a numerical value for the potential at any point. When an object moves from one location to another, the force changes the potential energy of the object by an amount that does not depend on the path taken. If the force is not conservative, then defining a scalar potential is not possible, because taking different paths would lead to conflicting potential differences between the start and end points.

Answer 4

I figured it out. Thanks anyways.

Answer 5

take the next derivative. d2P = d2Q, in old speak, if consrvative.

out of interest, where is your Fy term?

Answer 6

Yes, I figured it out.

It was just an example I was curious about :)