0.30 Phy1300: angular momentum -- rotational kinetic energy and

Table of contents

• Preface
  • General
  • Prerequisites
  • Viewing tip
    • Facts worth remembering
  • Supplemental material
• Discussion
  • Introduction
  • Calculating rotational kinetic energy
  • The rotational inertia (I)
  • Mass is no longer absolute
  • The parallel axis theorem
  • Examples of rotational inertia
• Example scenarios
  • The 2x4 scenario
  • The dumbbell scenario
  • A pulley and two objects, part 1
  • A pulley and two objects, part 2
  • A pulley and two objects, part 3
  • A pulley and two objects, part 4
  • A pulley and two objects, part 5
  • An Atwood machine
  • A flywheel
• What have we learned?
• Work through the examples
• Resources
• Miscellaneous

Preface

General

This module is part of a book (or collection) designed to make physics concepts accessible to blind students. The collection is intended to supplement but not to replace thetextbook in an introductory course in high school or college physics.

This module explains rotational kinetic energy and inertia in a format that is accessible to blind students.

Prerequisites

In addition to an Internet connection and a browser, you will need the following tools (as a minimum) to work through the exercises in these modules:

• A graph board for plotting graphs and vector diagrams ( (External Link) ).
• A protractor for measuring angles ( (External Link) ).
• An audio screen reader that is compatible with your operating system,such as the NonVisual Desktop Access program (NVDA), which is freely available at (External Link) .
• A refreshable Braille display capable of providing a line by line tactile output of information displayed on the computer monitor ( (External Link) ).
• A device to create Braille labels. Will be used to label graphs constructed on the graph board.

The minimum prerequisites for understanding the material in these modules include:

• A good understanding of algebra.
• An understanding of the use of a graph board for plotting graphs and vector diagrams ( (External Link) ).
• An understanding of the use of a protractor for measuring angles ( (External Link) ).
• A basic understanding of the use of sine, cosine, and tangent from trigonometry ( (External Link) ).
• An introductory understanding of JavaScript programming ( (External Link) and (External Link) ).
• An understanding of all of the material covered in the earlier modules in this collection.

Viewing tip

I recommend that you open another copy of this document in a separate browser window and use the following links to easily find and view the materiallisted below while you are reading about it.

Facts worth remembering

• Rotational inertia
• Translational and Rotational Kinetic Energy
• Finding the rotational inertia
• The parallel axis theorem
• Examples of rotational inertia

Supplemental material

I recommend that you also study the other lessons in my extensive collection of online programming tutorials. You will find a consolidated index at www.DickBaldwin.com .

Discussion

What do we mean by rotational kinetic energy and rotational inertia?

Introduction

In an earlier module, you learned of Newton's first law, which can be paraphrased something like the following: