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Ch.5 - Thermochemistry

Chapter 5, Problem 2a

The accompanying photo shows a pipevine swallowtail caterpillar climbing up a twig. (a) As the caterpillar climbs, its potential energy is increasing. What source of energy has been used to effect this change in potential energy?

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Hi everyone for this problem we're told when a skydiver jumps off a plane there, kinetic energy increases. We want to know where did the kinetic energy come from? So let's go ahead and map this out. We have a skydiver jumping off of a plane. When the skydiver jumps off of a plane, their height decreases so they experience a decrease in their height. This decrease in height also leads to a decrease and gravitational potential energy. Okay, This gravitational potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, which is the speed increasing. Okay, so and the answer to this is that the kinetic energy is coming from gravitational potential energy. Okay. Because a decrease in the height leads to a decrease in gravitational potential energy that is then converted to kinetic energy. Okay, I hope this was helpful.