Conservation of Energy - Mechanics

Mechanics

In mechanics, conservation of energy is usually stated as

where T is kinetic and V potential energy.

For this particular form to be valid, the following must be true:

• The system is scleronomous (neither kinetic nor potential energy are explicit functions of time)
• The potential energy doesn't depend on velocities.
• The kinetic energy is a quadratic form with regard to velocities.
• The total energy E depends on the motion of the frame of reference (and it turns out that it is minimum for the center of mass frame).