Vocabulary

Potential Energy

the stored energy of position possessed by an object is referred to as potential energy.

For example, the heavy ball of a demolition machine is storing energy when it is held at an

elevated position.

The two examples above illustrate the two forms of potential energy to be discussed in this

course - gravitational potential energy and elastic potential energy.

Picture

In the picture, the massive ball is kind of gravitational potential energy.The gravitational

potential energy of the massive ball of a demolition machine is dependent on two variables -

the mass of the ball and the height to which it is raised. There is a direct relation between

gravitational potential energy and the mass of an object.

Gravitational potential energy is the energy stored in an object as the result of its vertical

position or height.

The energy is stored as the result of the gravitational attraction of the Earth for the object.

The higher that an object is elevated, the greater the gravitational potential energy.

In the above equation,

m represents the mass of the object

h represents the height of the object

g represents the gravitational field strength (9.8 N/kg on Earth) - sometimes referred to as

the acceleration of gravity.