Potential - wikipedia Potential For other uses, see Potential ( disambiguation ). Potential generally refers to a currently unrealized ability. The term is used in a wide variety of fields, from physics to the social sciences to indicate things that are in a state where they are able to change in ways ranging from the simple release of energy by objects to the realization of abilities in people. Examples include : In linguistics, the potential mood. The mathematical study of potentials is known as potential theory ; it is the study of harmonic functions on manifolds. This mathematical formulation arises from the fact that, in physics, the scalar potential is irrotational, and thus has a vanishing Laplacian -- the very definition of a harmonic function. In physics, a potential may refer to the scalar potential or to the vector potential. In either case, it is a field defined in space, from which many important physical properties may be derived. Leading examples are the gravitational potential and the electric potential, from which the motion of gravitating or electrically charged bodies may be obtained. Specific forces have associated potentials, including the Coulomb potential, the van der Waals potential, the Lennard - Jones potential and the Yukawa potential. In electrochemistry there are Galvani potential, Volta potential, electrode potential, standard electrode potential. In thermodynamics potential refers to thermodynamic potential. See also Wikiquote has quotations related to : Potential Look up potential in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Potential difference Potential energy Water potential References Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Potential&oldid=811301877 '' Categories : Potentials Talk About Wikipedia Wikiquote Cymraeg Deutsch Español فارسی 한국어 Hrvatski Ido Nederlands 日本 語 Slovenščina Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 20 November 2017, at 19 : 37. About Wikipedia

Question: what is the meaning of potential in physics
Answer: a field defined in space, from which many important physical properties may be derived