Physics: Potential energy

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Potential energy Form: PE = mgh In physics, potential energy is the energy of an object or system due to the body's position relative to other objects, or the configuration of its particles.

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Potential energy Form: PE = mgh In physics, potential energy is the energy of an object or system due to the body's position relative to other objects, or the configuration of its particles. What Potential energy means This equation relates fundamental physical quantities. Every time physicists apply this formula, they're building on a breakthrough that transformed ho w we understand reality. Deep dive: Potential energy PE = mgh In physics, potential energy is the energy of an object or system due to the body's position relative to other objects, or the configuration of its particles. The energy is equal to the work done against any restoring forces, such as gravity or those in a spring. The term potential energy was introduced by the 19th-century Scottish engineer and physicist William Rankine, although it has links to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's concept of potentiality. Common types of potential energy include gravitational potential energy, the elastic potential energy of a deformed spring, and the electric potential energy of an electric charge and an electric field. The unit for energy in the International System of Units (SI) is the joule (symbol J). Potential energy is associated with forces that act on a body in a way that the total work done by these forces on the body depends only on the initial and final positions of the body in space. These forces, whose total work is path independent, are called conservative forces. If the force acting on a body varies over space, then one has a force field; such a field is described by vectors at every point in space, which is, in turn, called a vector field. A conservative vector field can be simply expressed as the gradient of a certain scalar function, called a scalar potential. The potential energy is related to, and can be obtained from, this potential function.

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