A 17.0 kg child travels down a playground slide 3.50 m high and reaches the bottom with a speed of 2.50 m/s. How much heat was generated due to friction as a result of this process?
my teacher hadn't taught anything about heat..but he did give us this question, thus, i got no idea with this question. please help. thanks a lot.
The heat generated equals the amount of (kinetic + potential) energy lost. That is because of the law of conservation of energy.
In this case, M g H = 17x9.8x3.5 = 583.1 J of potential energy is lost while the kinetic energy increases by (1/2)x(17)x(2.5)^2 = 53.1 J. The rest of the potential energy loss, 530 J, is converted to heat