Wednesday, March 21, 2018

statistical mechanics - What is the origin of non-conservative force?



My understanding about conservative force is a force that its work is independent of path such that we can construct another form of the work called potential to make our life easier.



For friction, if I start from microscopic point of view, it should be the macroscopic effect of the electric force or gravity which are both conservative force.


Why do we initially have description by conservative forces (electric/gravity force) but end up with a macroscopic description of nonconservative force(friction)?




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