Question
A student pushes a cardboard box across a carpeted floor and afterwards notices that the bottom of the box feels warm. Explain how interactions between molecules in the cardboard and molecules in the carpet produced this heat.
Final Answer
Please see the solution video.
Solution video
OpenStax College Physics for AP® Courses, Chapter 5, Problem 4 (Test Prep for AP® Courses)
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Video Transcript
This is College Physics Answers with Shaun Dychko. The cardboard box is pushed across a carpeted floor— the bottom of the box feels warm— and there's electrostatic attraction between molecules in the carpet and the box and as the box is pushed over the carpet, these bonds are causing particles in both the box and the carpet to jiggle and you know, the particles are being attracted on the one hand and then as the box moves further that bond of attraction is broken and it's attracted to the next particle that's nearby. And as these bonds are created and broken, particles are jiggling around but they don't jiggle around forever; they eventually stop jiggling and that energy of jiggling has to go somewhere— and it is because energy cannot be destroyed and it has to only change form— and so it changes into heat energy.