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WHAT IS POTENTIAL VS. KINETIC ENERGY?
Energy makes stuff happen. Energy associated with the motion of an object is called kinetic energy. Energy stored in an object due to its position is called potential energy. Energy can be converted between potential and kinetic based on an object’s motion.
To better understand Potential vs. Kinetic Energy…
WHAT IS POTENTIAL VS. KINETIC ENERGY?.
Energy makes stuff happen. Energy associated with the motion of an object is called kinetic energy. Energy stored in an object due to its position is called potential energy. Energy can be converted between potential and kinetic based on an object’s motion.
To better understand Potential vs. Kinetic Energy…
LET’S BREAK IT DOWN!
Energy makes stuff happen.
Richard Feynman, one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century, told his students that, “It is important to realize that, in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount. It is not that way. However, there are formulas for calculating some numerical quantity, and when we add it all together it gives … always the same number. It is an abstract thing in that it does not tell us the mechanism or the reasons for the various formulas“(Feynman, Leighton, and Sands 1965, p. 4-2). According to Feynman, it is more important to describe how energy behaves in a system than to define what energy is. One thing we know is that energy makes stuff happen, and we can calculate it very precisely when it does.