Talk:Potential energy

message: This article can use some cleanups (which I might just do sometime soon). Potential energy is not 'stored into the body'. That is just the wrong idea!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Angadude (talk • contribs) 09:26, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanups

message: "When the book is raised from the floor to the table, the gravitational force does negative work." Bullshit. The gravitational force does not lift the book.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.183.115.231 (talk) 10:10, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What the?

message: I just added a paragraph pointing out that gravitational potential energy is also imparted to the Earth.
I also commented out this:
:[We may also want to link to an explanation of that second term (the gravitational forces created by hollow spherical shells)]
 — PhilHibbs | talk 18:23, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Gravitational nitpicking

message: Are these terms equivalent? If so, they should be redirected and mentioned in the article. -- Kjkolb 09:24, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electrical potential energy = electrostatic potential energy = coulomb energy? 

message: Should magnetic potential energy be included here? -- Kjkolb 09:57, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that is covered by electrical potential energy, since electricity and magnetism are two aspects of the same fundamental force.  Perhaps the section on electrical potential energy should be modified to say electromagnetic potential energy. Wbrameld 23:22, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Magnetic potential energy 

message: Does potential energy have mass?  For example, take any two stars in our galaxy, let's say Polaris and Rigel, to pick two at random.  The gravitational attraction and physical distance between Polaris and Rigel embody an enormous amount of potential energy.  If you solve E=mc^2 for mass:
m = E/c^2
and if you plug in the gravitational potential energy between Polaris and Rigel as E in that equation, you get a significant mass value.  But does this mass make any real-world sense?  Does the mass of that potential energy have its own gravitational field, and if so, what shape does it take?  (And to get really way out there, has this been considered by people working on the problem of 'dark' matter?)
Wbrameld 22:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It does apply, but doesn't solve the dark matter problem (in fact, it was one of the original reasons for conjecturing that there was a large amount of unseen matter). Among other things, this is why the nuclei of atoms weigh less than their constituent protons and neutrons would in isolation (they're stuck way down at the bottom of a Strong-force potential well, and the mass difference is equal to the energy needed to pull them up out of that well). Cosmologically, the flatness problem relates to the difference between the gravitational potential energy of the universe and the mass of all objects within it. See that article for more information on the subject. --Christopher Thomas 21:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Energy is related to mass, exhibits inertia, and exhibits gravitational force, so how could you tell?  If the spring is released, its potential energy goes into kinetic energy, and then to thermal energy.  Put it in a black box with perfectly insulated walls and the inertia of the box and its apparant mass do not change through the processes.  If you let heat through the walls and allow the spring to cool to its starting temperature, energy is lost and the mass of the box decreases.  Stretch the spring again using energy derived from an external source and the spring gets just a little more massive.Pvkeller (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

text: The confusion arises from thinking loosly about mass and trying to separate it from energy.  Mass can be defined as total energy.  See Invariant mass.  When you talk about potential energy of one kind or another, you are choosing a special way to account for some of the mass/energy in the system, a choice that makes sense because that mass/energy is available in a particular way.Pvkeller (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

text: Take the case of a star.  You can calulate its total thermal energy and the gravitational force exerted by that energy, but why have you separated that gravitational force from thermal energy from the rest of the gravitational force?  The star has a mass that includes the contributions from all its forms of energy.Pvkeller (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does Mass-Energy Equivalence Apply? 

message: This article has been edited in bits by many people, and has ended up as a random collection of facts and approaches.  The overall organization needs to be redone, I think. -- SCZenz 20:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: Original equation:
U_g = \int_{h_0}^h {GmM \over r^2} dr + \int_0^{h_0} {GmM \over h_0^2} {r \over h_0} dr
What's happening is that they're trying to integrate force (across distance) on a test particle (with mass m) moved from the centre of a uniform sphere (with mass M) outwards. They move the test particle from radius 0 to radius h_0 (the sphere's radius), integrating force applied by the mass within radius r, then as a separate integral integrated from radius h_0 out to the final radius h.
The first term of the equation above represents the integration outside the sphere. I don't think anyone disputed that.
The second term represents integration inside the sphere. This starts off expressed as:
+ \int_0^{h_0}{\left ( \frac{G m}{r^2} \right )
\left ( \frac{r}{h_0} \right )^3 M} dr
Cancelling gives:
+ \int_0^{h_0}{\frac{G m M r}{h_0^3}dr}
...And then they grouped the terms within this integral strangely.
Integrating gives:
U_g = G m M \left [ - \left ( \frac{1}{r} \right ) \vert_{h_0}^{h} \right ]
+ \left ( \frac{G m M}{h_0^3} \right )
\left [ \left ( \frac{1}{2} \right ) r^2 \vert_0^{h_0} \right ]
U_g = G m M \left [ - \frac{1}{h} + \frac{1}{h_0} \right ]
+ \left ( \frac{G m M}{h_0^3} \right )
\left [ \left ( \frac{1}{2} \right ) h_0^2 - 0 \right ]
U_g = G m M \left [ \frac{1}{h_0} - \frac{1}{h} \right ]
+ G m M \left [ \left ( \frac{1}{2} \right ) \frac{1}{h_0} \right ]
U_g = G m M \left [ \left ( \frac{3}{2} \right ) \frac{1}{h_0}
- \frac{1}{h} \right ]
...So the equations as-given were correct, just incredibly non-intuitive.
Setting the final distance h as infinity makes \frac{1}{h} vanish, giving:
U_g(\infty) = G m M \left ( \frac{3}{2} \right ) \frac{1}{h_0}
Declaring U_g(\infty) to be zero gives:
U_g(h) = G m M \left [ \left ( \frac{3}{2} \right ) \frac{1}{h_0}
- \frac{1}{h} \right ] - G m M \left ( \frac{3}{2} \right ) \frac{1}{h_0}
U_g(h) = - G m M \left ( \frac{1}{h} \right )
As mentioned above, this is pretty close to being the most complicated way of deriving the gravitational potential energy. --Christopher Thomas 06:54, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Method originally presented

message: This section was a horrible mess, so although I'm not an expert I've attempted a tidy-up on the basis that I could hardly make it any worse. In an ideal world someone might review it and make any necessary corrections. In particular, the original text contained the statement "Note that the potential energy of both objects is the same, so the potential energy of the whole system is 2×U_g (as defined above)." It seems to me that this statement is untrue, so I have rewritten that paragraph based on the asumption that U_g, as defined earlier, measures the total potential energy of the system.
Matt 00:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revision of gravitational potential energy section 

message: By the definition given
*Potential energy is the of energy that is by virtue of the relative positions (configurations) of the objects within a physical system
How is rest mass an example potential energy? Note that\nabla E_0 = 0, It doesn't depend whatsoever on the position relative to other object. 131.215.7.198 06:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rest Mass Energy

message: Hello all, this page is great.  I left a message on the kinetic talk page about how the kinetic format is not nearly what the format here is:
"The information here is commendable, as is the discussion on this page. However, it seems reasonable that since there are relationships between kinetic and potential energies, there should be a relationship between their two respective articles here at Wikipedia. The potential energy article lists, explains, and hypertext references all the types of potential energy; this article does not, which reduces its audience to only people who already fully understand the principles."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by John van v (talk • contribs) 19:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Kinetic Energy page needs help

message: its something about energy that make pepole well understand things about kinetic energy or potential energy just  the world so great make so little like good but more of bad who would think one day there will be no clean water or trees or food but some do for me as an exaple you life wonts last forever here are stuff on earth is disapering just right under are noses thats how some pepole konw by factores pollting the air by useing good enegry and turning it into bad so what do think about enegry good or bad its life like this that can make a diffense to us all so just as a waring think about what you are youing every day
:You don't know what you're talking about.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.65.67.197 (talk) 03:45, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  energy good or bad life 

message: There should be a more conclusive entry on potential (as opposed to potential energy). This is an important subject and the Wikipedia entry on "potential" is very limited. Anyone want to do it? 128.113.195.102 (talk) 00:27, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Potential 

message: The text on this page, beginning in the Overview section, is centered, rather than left-justified.  I can't figure out why or how to fix it, but the appearance is kind of disconcerting.  66.142.96.200 (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 05:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting 

message: There should be some words in the article emphasizing that for instance gravitational potential energy is a shared property of both a body and e.g. the earth. It is not correct to say that PE=mgh is gravitational potential energy of a particular body. This since GPE's source is Newton's law of gravity which involves two masses. See Young & Freedman, University Physics (in the 9th ed, p. 195). Mårten Berglund (talk) 18:42, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See remarks under [Does Mass-Energy Equivalence Apply?].  Potential energy is just a way of accounting for the possibility of doing work using the force that draws massive objects together.  Total energy of two distant objects, as determined from their masses, is no greater than the sum of the energies of the two objects considered individually.Pvkeller (talk) 18:02, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shared property 

message: Hello all... 
An image used in the article, specifically :Image:Dynorwic.JPG, has a little bit of a licensing issue.  The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive.  It is presumed that the uploader was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard.  As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article.  If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.
You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 17:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image needs replacement 

message: :Potential energy can be thought of as energy stored within a physical system.
Rather than saying how it can be "thought of", can we say what it actually is?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.137.136.32 (talk) 02:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Woolly opening sentence 

message: It would be interesting if physicists could theorize the existence of potential mass, when you take Einstein's equation of mass-energy equivalence into account. ADM (talk) 04:09, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would go something like this: An object with a certain weight, (say 100 pounds) suspended at an arbitrary altitude will have the potential to strike the ground with a force greater than its weight, (say an impact force of 1000 pounds). Zaereth (talk) 03:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Potential mass

message: As I understand it, neither thermal energy nor rest-mass energy are normally considered to be forms of potential energy.  There are articles on each of these topics that describe them better than they're described here - would anyone object to deleting these two sections?  Djr32 (talk) 11:14, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Djr32 (talk) 11:53, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove sections Thermal energy and Rest mass energy? 

message: The second to lat sentence in the article is not grammatically correct. However, I don't understand the physics, so I don't feel qualified to fix it. Someone please give this little sentence a bit of attention.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.23.202.135 (talk) 03:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed; thanks for the note. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 06:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Small change requested 

message: How much potential energy is stored in a cubic meter of water 10 meters high, and how does it compare to a liter of gasoline used for combustion, both in finite values and in practical use. What are the typical costs for setting up and for using this energy? At small scale and large scale?  Thanks פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 14:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Depends on how you're comparing it. (Apples to apples.) The gravitational potential energy of water at that height, 98,000 Joules. The gravitational potential energy of a cubic meter of gasoline at the same height, 70,560 Joules. (Apples to oranges.) The chemical potential energy for a cubic meter of gasoline at any height is 32,976,000,000 Joules. Zaereth (talk) 00:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comparison table and some example numbers 

message: removed V from the list of common symbols with the rationale "V" denotes velocity or volume, never potential energy. I don't agree with that statement. V is commonly  used for potential energy in contexts such as Lagrangians, Hamiltonians or the Virial theorem. I think we should leave it in the infobox. — HHHIPPO 12:05, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, it shouild remain in the list. V is a common symbol for potential energy as well as velocity and volume. It is also a common symbol for voltage (and so is "E" for "electromotive force"). It is often necessary in math equations to specify what the letter stands for. Zaereth (talk) 16:15, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no objection to V being restored, provided it is genuinely in common usage in reliable published sources. It has not been in long-term usage in our article Potential energy, having only been added about ten days ago - see this diff. Dolphin (t) 00:01, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Like "V" for voltage or "A" for amperage, the "V" for potential energy is somewhat archaic, but can be found still in common usage. Two examples which come to mind are Textbook of applied physics (here is the google books link) or Principles of engineering mechanics (google link). My personal opinion is that listing both symbols is useful to help people who may encounter books which use "V," because many of them do still exist. Zaereth (talk) 01:56, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Just using the same query without specifying a book gives tons of hits. If the symbol wasn't mentioned here until recently that's overdue, since also a number of Wikipedia articles use it that way. — HHHIPPO 20:13, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like we've reached a concensus. I don't have time right now to make the change, or I would, so if someone would like to do the honors, it would be appreciated. I gotta go, I'm late. (No time to say hello, goodbye...) Zaereth (talk) 02:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  — HHHIPPO 07:34, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common symbols 

message: A picture of the trebuchet has a caption:
"A trebuchet uses the gravitational potential energy of the counterweight to throw projectiles over long distances."
By comparison with the distance that modern projectiles travel I think it misleading to say that a trebuchet throws projectiles over "long" distances.  The maximum range of a trebuchet is probably about 250m which is not impressive or "long" by my 21st century understanding of a good range. The trebuchet compares poorly with a modern projectile such as an artillery gun shell which will have a range of tens of kilometers.
I would suggest changing "long" to read "short".  194.176.105.141 (talk) 13:23, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Added "relatively" to the caption ... as for their historical use the range was long even though by modern terms not. P'raps could be tweaked further re the time period of invention/usage. Vsmith (talk) 15:09, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Surely when we write an article it uses modern words and modern standards?  If I was writing about stone aged people I would not describe bronze tools as advanced without providing a context.  Furthermore I would say that by the standards of the time the range was short compared to a well thrown spear, an arrow, a crossbow bolt or a sling shot.194.176.105.141 (talk) 12:56, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: When speaking about the trebuchet, we are not comparing it to all of the other weapons previously developed. This article is about potential energy, not weapons. The movement that the projectile travels is a relatively long distance when compared to the movement of the counterweight. Comparing it to the range of an arrow, or a bullet, or even an intercontinental ballistic missile makes no sense here. Zaereth (talk) 17:26, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I might add, however, that one of the benefits of a war engine ("engine" being a machine that changes potential energy into kinetic energy) is that it allowed devastating attacks from a relatively safe distance. At your estimate of nearly 2 1/2 football fields, that puts it well out of range for most conventional weapons at the time. Zaereth (talk) 19:30, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  trebuchet  

message: The lead sentence now reads "In physics, potential energy is energy stored in a system of forcefully interacting physical entities.". Although this is correct I don't think anyone who doesn't already know what potential energy is will understand what a "system of forcefully interacting physical entities" is. I much prefer the sentence agreed upon on this talk page Talk:Potential_energy#Lead_sentence:"In physics, Potential energy is the energy stored in a body or in a system due to its position in a force field or due to its configuration.", backed up by this book reference.
Furthermore I find it strange that there is no mention of conservative forces in the lead. Also I think more readers would understand the concept if there was a few examples of potential energy early on, specifically mentioning gravitational potential since this is something everyone is familiar with. I would also move the etymology out of the lead section since the lead should be a summary of the rest of the article and as it is now there is no etymology later on. Any thoughts on this? Ulflund (talk) 21:22, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the lead sentence is not consistent with WP:Make technical articles understandable. Your proposals for improving the situation are good ones. Please go ahead. Dolphin (t) 04:43, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead section 

message: This article doesn't really explain what potential energy fundamentally *is* on a quantum level, which is what I wanted to find out. Also, the first sentence of the overview says "Potential energy is the stored or pent-up energy of an object". While this is often true, potential energy is better thought of as the energy stored in the *fields* (e.g. gravitational or electromagentic) of the *system*. For instance, in multi-particle examples, like a collection of point charges, you don't talk about "the potential" of each one, but rather you speak of the potential of the *whole system*. --AndreRD (talk) 09:19, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: To quote Richard Feynman, "It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount. It is not that way." That's what we all want to find out. It is impossible for a field alone to have energy. When talking potential energy, there is always an object for that field to exert force upon, so it's natural to conceptualize it as belonging to the object. The concept of a system is a difficult one to explain to a general audience in a single sentence, so it's best to start simple and work up to the advanced stuff. From a fighter pilot's perspective, energy is simply the state of an object's mass (note: mass is not the same thing as matter, so the common visualization of something actually changing in size as it gains energy does not apply), so the real question becomes, "What is mass?" Zaereth (talk) 17:47, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  On a quantum level 

message: The whole point of near earth gravity potential energy is to simplify things. As it stands, that section is not accessible to most people. In other words, its not simple enough and doesn't explain itself well. Why is the final equation U(r) = mgh(r)? What is h(r)? Something definitely doesn't make sense there. Fresheneesz (talk) 02:14, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Although I'm not 100% sure of the purpose of "(r)," U = mgh means that potential energy is the mass of an object times gravitational acceleration at the Earth's surface (9.8 meters per second per second squared) times the height above the ground. This is good for near-Earth calculations, where the gravitational acceleration is nearly constant; that is, stable to within a 1% margin of error to about 64 kilometers up. Beyond that, gravitational acceleration is not constant but changes (gets less and less the farther away from Earth you get), so the math gets a little more complicated to account for this. Zaereth (talk) 10:18, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Near Earth gravity section is too complicated 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: "Common types of potential energy include [...] the elastic potential energy of an extended spring"
Why it should be "extended". It should be "compressed", isn't it?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Azrozet (talk • contribs) 01:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It can be either or. It can also be bent or straightened, twisted or untwisted, etc... "Extended" (stretched) is simply the word the author chose to use in this example. Zaereth (talk) 01:07, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: “Deformed” spring might be better? Grove Farcher (talk) 15:30, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I think it might confuse the issue. In the technical sense, it would be correct. However, there are two types of deformation, elastic and plastic, yet the former is mostly a technical term while the general reader will usually know it as the latter. How about we just say stretched? Zaereth (talk) 19:16, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why "extended spring"? 

message: Edit: I have changed it a bit now, but I think it's still a bit unclear. Yodo9000 (talk) 12:42, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove subsection 2.1 ''Derivable from a potential'' 

message: Common types of potential energy include the gravitational potential energy of an object that depends on 
* its mass
* its distance from the center of mass of another object ... 
Mass of the other object MIA. 
Maybe there's a frame of reference where the mass of m2 is somehow subsumed in such a way that it's implicit in the PE function rather than explicit. 
But I suspect this is actually an error in the prose, not a subtle feature of the standard treatment. — MaxEnt 19:27, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, but I have no clue what you're asking for. Does this have anything to do with the article? Is there some specific change you'd like to make? Zaereth (talk) 19:34, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I think User:MaxEnt is referring to the second paragraph in the lead. There is a sentence that says potential energy of an object is based on the mass of that object and the distance between the centres of mass of two objects, but says nothing about the mass of the second object (or the universal gravitational constant.) A quick change to the offending sentence in the lead should fix it. Dolphin (t) 03:26, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

text: I have attempted to eliminate the confusion by erasing unnecessary complexity from the lead. See my diff. Dolphin (t) 06:58, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok. I see. Looks like one of those things that can be read two different ways. When I read it, the term "center of mass" implies the mass of the second object, so saying it again would seem redundant, but I agree it's overly complex for the lede. Your solution seems to fix the problem beautifully. Zaereth (talk) 20:28, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about m2?  

message: I think that these statements at the start of the article need qualification.  
"In physics, potential energy is the energy held by an object because of its position relative to other objects, stresses within itself, its electric charge, or other factors."
"Common types of potential energy include the gravitational potential energy of an object, the elastic potential energy of an extended spring, and the electric potential energy of an electric charge in an electric field."
I am ok with the spring but surely the references to an object and an electric charge are, at the very least, misleading in that there is an implication of only one entity storing the potential energy?
Better the idea of a system of (more than one) . . . . . ? Grove Farcher (talk) 10:41, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your input. The only thing is that, that's how it's normally described in sources. For potential energy, we have two things at play, which is a field (containing a force) and an object (containing the energy provided by that force). Who's to say it's the object that has the energy and not the field? It's simply a matter of convention that we describe the object as containing the energy and the field has the force, but in some reality that is beyond our perception it may be the opposite. And what if there is no other object? For example, a star orbiting a black hole? I know, it's likely that there is some object at the center of the black hole, but no one really knows for sure, which is part of the great mystery of them. We could probably clarify "an object within a gravitational field", which of course describes all objects in the universe. In the spring the energy is actually between the atoms and the forces holding them together. Describing an electric charge (an electron) in an electric field sounds about right. What do you propose we change? Zaereth (talk) 19:34, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

text: On a side note, the example of electricity is an interesting one to me, because, being a negative particle, the power moves in the opposite direction that the electrons flow, as if in this case the field actually does contain the energy and the object contains the force. Zaereth (talk) 21:32, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  For a system to have potential energy the system must contain at least two entities