How much work would it take to push a # 25 kg # weight up a # 15 m # plane that is at an incline of # pi / 6 #?

1 Answer
Dec 14, 2015

#1800 "J"#

Explanation:

Let's look at the situation in terms of energy. At the bottom of the incline, the weight has zero potential energy. At the top, the weight will have gravitational potential energy #mgh#.

Assuming we have a fairly greasy weight or surface (such that friction is negligible) we can state that the work done by you in pushing the weight up the incline will be converted entirely into gravitational potential energy.

#mgh = 25 "kg" * 9.81 m/s^2 * 15 m * sin(pi/6) = 1839.375 "J"#

Considering that we should only have two significant digits our final answer will be

#1800 "J"#