Physics Group
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isabellajone
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Community / Jr. College
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krishna-agrawala Teacher
Graduate SchoolPosted by krishna-agrawala on Sunday May 17, 2009 at 10:27 PMPotential energy is one of the two type of energies defined in mechanics that an object may possess - the other type is kinetic energy.
Potential energy possessed by and object is directly related to its position. As a matter of fact, potential energy may be defines as the energy possessed by an object because of its position. When we lift an object, we are acting against the gravitational force acting on it. We apply force to overcome this gravitational force, and the energy expended in doing so gets stored in the object as potential energy. If this project is again allowed to fall freely, under the force of gravitational force it will gain speed during the fall, the speed being maximum when just as the object reaches ground level. In this process of falling the potential energy gets converted to kinetic energy, which is the energy possessed by an object because of its speed.
Similarly when we throw a ball up in the air, the ball, when just leaving our hand, poseses certain amount of kinetic energy because of its speed, and because of this energu the ball travels upward. But the ball is also being pulled down by the gravitional force which graduall reduces is speed, till the ball reaches zero speed at its highest point.
At this point all the kinetic energy has bee converted in potential energy. After this point the ball starts its downward travel at increasing speed. In this process, again, the potential energy is converted in to kinetic energy.
Please note that the above discussion on types of energies is related to mechanical energies. In addition to mechanical energy there are many other types of energies such as chemical, heat, pressure and nuclear.
