Dictionary

potential energy

When an object is being acted upon by a force like the electric or gravitational force, then it can be assigned an energy that depends only on its location relative to the source of the force. This energy is called the potential energy – “potential” as it can easily be transformed into kinetic energy, energy associated with the object’s motion: As the object yields to the pull or push of the force, its potential energy decreases while the energy associated with its motion increases.

Definitioner

potential energy

When an object is being acted upon by a force like the electric or gravitational force, then it can be assigned an energy that depends only on its location relative to the source of the force. This energy is called the potential energy - "potential" as it can easily be transformed into kinetic energy, energy associated with the object's motion: As the object yields to the pull or push of the force, its potential energy decreases while the energy associated with its motion increases.

force

In mechanics: Influence acting on a body, trying to accelerate it.

More generally: All influences by which elementary or other particles can interact; in this sense, force and interaction are synonymous. In the standard model of particle physics, there are three elementary forces: electromagnetism, the weak (nuclear) force and the strong (nuclear) force, while there is no quantum description of the fourth fundamental interaction, gravity.

energy

Physical quantity with the special property that, in physical processes, energy is neither destroyed nor created, simply transformed from one form of energy to another. Some of the different forms of energy that are defined separately are kinetic energy, thermal energy and the energy carried by electromagnetic radiation. Processes that transform one form of energy into another take place in all machines we use in everyday life, from the engine of a subway train (electrical energy into kinetic energy of the train) to an electric blanket (electrical energy into thermal energy). One important consequence of special relativity is that energy and mass are completely equivalent - two different ways to define what is, on closer inspection, one and the same physical quantity. See the keyword equivalence between mass and energy.

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potential energy

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