Can any one explain me what exactly is meant by conservative force?
A force is conservative if the work it does on an object, when the object goes from A to B is “independent” of the path taken. For example, If you move an object straight up a distance “h” the work done by the gravitational force is just -weight x height. (minus because the force is down and the displacement is up) If you move the same object to the same height but instead of straight up you whirl its path, do loop de loops, back n forth, whatever. If after this exotic trip the object the object ends up at height “h” the work done by gravity is still only -weight x height. So the gravitational force is conservative. Although the work “you” did is quite different in the two cases and is not conservative. This property of a conservative force allows you to define a potential energy change in terms of the work done by the conservative force because the change ,between two points, will always have the same value, regardless of how the object gets from one point to the other. Generally, the
