What does it mean to say the Coulomb Force is a conservative force? This is what I have compiled, but I still feel like I'm missing something. A conservative force is one in which energy cannot be created nor destroyed, and with the property that the work done in moving a particle between 2 points is independent of the path taken. 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. Therefore, it has a potential function.
1 answer
You have it. Here it is perfect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_force