How Can Potential Energy Be Changed Into Kinetic Energy

All the free energy in the universe is either potential energy or kinetic energy.

The interaction and definition of these two energies are vital to our agreement of the world around us. Let's take a await at what potential and kinetic free energy mean, the relationship between them, and some examples of each.

What Is Potential and Kinetic Energy, and What Are Their Differences?

Potential energy is stored energy. An object has a measurable amount of potential energy depending on where information technology's located and how it relates to other objects around information technology — t he energy of position.^[ane]

An apple on the floor has very little potential energy. Lift information technology to the elevation of a skyscraper, and suddenly information technology has a lot of potential energy. It can autumn to the ground under the force of gravity. Information technology tin also collaborate with other objects on its descent, such as striking a flying bird or landing on a car roof and damaging it.

When the apple is descending, its potential free energy has become kinetic energy, which is the energy of motion. Kinetic free energy is the energy a person or an object has due to its motion — in this example, the falling apple. A parked bike on peak of a hill has potential energy, which becomes kinetic free energy once you kickoff riding it downhill.

Both of these energies are measured in joules. Energy is never destroyed or lost when changing from potential energy to kinetic energy — it is merely transformed from one energy type to another. This is known as the law of conservation of free energy.^[two]

The potential energy of an object cannot be transferred to another entity – you cannot suck the potential energy out of the apple atop a skyscraper. Kinetic free energy is transferable, equally witnessed with the falling apple's kinetic free energy damaging a automobile or hitting a bird.

What Is the Relationship Between Potential and Kinetic Free energy?

The relationship betwixt potential energy and kinetic free energy is that potential energy can transform into kinetic energy.

Potential energy is position relative. In other words, it changes depending on an object's peak or distance and the mass of the object. Kinetic energy changes depending on an object's speed and its mass.

If we think almost a waterfall, some still water at the top of the waterfall has potential energy. It isn't moving and hasn't gone over the edge. The water flowing from the waterfall has kinetic energy every bit information technology flows.^[iii]

A pendulum is an excellent case of this relationship. As the pendulum swings ever college upward, its potential energy increases until information technology reaches its optimum at the highest signal of the swing. At the top of the arc, the potential energy turns into kinetic energy equally it swings dorsum down.^[4]

What Are Examples of Potential Energy?

At that place are two main types of potential energy: gravitational potential energy and elastic potential energy.

The gravitational force of the Earth causes gravitational potential free energy. When a person jumps from a high swoop board, they land with much force (and a splash) into the pond puddle below.

The Earth's gravity uses the diver's gravitational forcefulness (their weight) to produce the kinetic free energy (motion) that brings the diver into the pool. At the meridian of the diving board, we can talk about the diver'due south gravitational potential energy.

This is the same for apples on trees, bikes on top of a hill, a roller coaster waiting to descend, and a skydiver in a plane — all examples of the potential to practise an amount of work.^[5]

Elastic potential free energy occurs when you lot stretch or compress something. A rubber ring left on a sideboard has little potential energy. If you pick it upward and stretch it, y'all have increased its potential to exercise some piece of work.

If you release the rubber ring, it may fly across the room or scare the cat . You lot manipulated the safety band to increase its potential free energy, which was so released as kinetic energy equally it traveled (motion) beyond the room. An archer pulling dorsum a bow and coiling a bound are farther examples of potential energy.^[6]

Specific Variations :

Having defined the chief types of free energy, we can wait at more specific examples and deduce if they have kinetic or potential energy.

What Is the Potential Energy of an Electron?

Atoms are made upwardly of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Atoms can transfer potential and kinetic energy.

An atom has a nucleus, and electrons orbit that nucleus, which is kinetic energy. Suppose we utilize free energy or force per unit area to the atom. In that case, information technology increases the electrons' kinetic energy and they offset to move more quickly. Eventually, the electrons spring out into a wider orbit of the nucleus. This electron has now stored this energy, this potential free energy.^[7]

At some betoken, the electron volition release this potential energy, converting into kinetic energy as information technology returns to its previous, smaller orbit. The potential free energy is released every bit visible light or oestrus, both types of kinetic energy.^[7]

An electron'due south total energy is the sum of its kinetic and potential energy.^[viii]

For more details, consider this formula ^[9] for computing the potential energy of an electron.

Is a Battery Kinetic or Potential Energy?

Batteries are a grade of electrical potential energy. They produce electrical free energy via a chemical reaction that occurs when positive and negative charges are separated.^[10]

When you turn on a battery-operated device, its potential free energy stores of chemical and electrical energy are released and become other kinetic energy forms. When turned on, a handheld torch releases calorie-free energy and thermal energy, a form of kinetic free energy. A battery-powered singing and cycling toy monkey atop a bike will produce mechanical energy every bit it cycles around, and sound energy while singing its vocal.^[11]

A battery stores potential free energy that transforms into kinetic energy. The mobile phone battery yous may be reading this on stores potential energy and converts information technology to kinetic free energy (calorie-free, thermal), allowing your phone to role.

Is Electrical Free energy Potential or Kinetic?

Electrical energy tin be potential or kinetic free energy. It results from the period of an electric charge. Equally discussed, energy tin can be seen every bit the piece of work required to movement an object or subject area it to strength. For electrical energy, this force, energy, or "work" is the electrical allure or repulsion between charged particles.

The current of electricity nearly commonly talked nearly occurs when these charged particles travel through a wire.

Like a battery, electric free energy is often potential energy until some strength or is applied to make the charged particles do some work and go kinetic energy. When you switch on your light at dwelling house, the potential energy travels down the wire and is converted into light and thermal energy.^[12]

It's enjoyable to recollect about the conservation of energy and how, for instance, renewable free energy like air current power takes energy from wind and converts it into usable electrical energy for our homes.

Is Sound Energy Potential or Kinetic?

Sound energy comes in both potential and kinetic energy forms. Sound energy is released past vibrating objects in the form of a moving ridge. ^[13]

An excellent instance of sound energy is a tuning fork. When it lies on the table, it has the potential to create sound energy, which is potential energy. In one case you strike it, it vibrates and emits sound waves. These waves oscillate and travel, which is kinetic free energy.

Sound travels effectually iv times faster in h2o than in air. At sea level, the speed of sound is approximately 767 miles per hour (1,230 kilometers per hour).^[14]

Is Thermal Energy Potential or Kinetic?

Thermal energy is also chosen heat energy. Remember the excitable electrons and atoms from earlier? Thermal energy is produced when these atoms and molecules are moving faster. They are moving more speedily because of the rise in temperature.^[15]

We need to stay at a molecular level to empathise that thermal free energy is besides potential and kinetic energy. All matter, made up of atoms and molecules, is ever moving. They have potential energy. Whenever a substance heats upwards, the molecules and atoms inside move more quickly, banging into each other and releasing thermal energy as estrus.^[15]

Think nigh a kettle humid. The water molecules move faster as the water heats, and this movement is kinetic energy. When the water boils, its steam moves. The thermal free energy released from the atoms and molecules has produced kinetic energy.

More than examples include the heat from an electrical heater or when you put food in the oven to broil; when you put cold milk in a hot potable similar tea, some of the tea's thermal heat is passed to the milk.^[16]

Is Radiant Energy Potential or Kinetic?

Radiant free energy is a grade of kinetic free energy. It is the energy of electromagnetic waves that can travel through infinite.

The sun is a vast source of radiant energy on Earth. For example, plants blot electromagnetic waves and, via photosynthesis, produce their food. When the sun's radiant energy touches our skin, the waves make our skin'southward molecules move faster, and we experience warmer.^[17]

We can see radiant energy waves as light energy — the simply course of energy the human eye can run into. Radiant free energy's magnetic waves can besides be invisible, such every bit Ten-rays and radio waves.^[18]

Variations of Potential Free energy

It's time to wait at more specific examples and names for different types of energy.

At that place are half-dozen main groups^[19] , some of which we have examined already:

• Nuclear free energy; energy released during nuclear fusion.^[7]
• Mechanical energy; sum of potential and kinetic energy.^[20]
• Chemic energy; energy stored in compounds and elements. ^[21]

• Electrical energy; potential or kinetic free energy resulting from the menstruum of an electrical charge.^[12]
• Radiant energy; electromagnetic waves that travel through space.^[17]
• Thermal energy; oestrus or thermal energy produced past rises in temperature.^{[15,nineteen]}

We recognize nuclear and electrical energy when choosing electricity suppliers for our homes, for example.

What Is Chemical Potential Free energy?

Chemical potential energy, in its simplest grade, is energy stored in compounds and elements. The se elements and compounds are fabricated upward of atoms and molecules that have atomic bonds. Chemical processes can pause these diminutive bonds, releasing the potential free energy of the atomic bonds and providing energy.^[21]

Every day nosotros use the chemic potential energy in food to give energy to our bodies. We eat food (a compound or element), and our digestive organization (chemical procedure) turns the potential free energy of the food into chemic energy. We tin can and then do work with this energy.^[22]

Combustion free energy does something similar to gasoline. The chemical process splits the complex gasoline molecule into smaller molecules (carbon dioxide and water). The free energy released produces estrus, which powers the now moving auto, the car'due south movement being kinetic energy.^[22]

Define Gravitational Potential Free energy

Ii rocks — one large, ane small — balancing on a 100-human foot cliff edge are skillful means to call back virtually gravitational potential energy. This potential free energy is defined as the free energy an object holds relative to its vertical position. It increases equally either the height or the mass of the object increases, or both. This is due to the Earth's gravitational field.^[23]

Back to our rocks. The bigger, heavier rock has more potential free energy than the smaller rock since the mass of the object is greater than the smaller stone. Let's push the large rock from the cliff border and turn that potential energy into kinetic energy. It comes to residue in the valley below and has very little potential energy. Our smaller rock now has more potential energy than the stationary larger rock, thank you to its vertical position.

Similarly, two identical rocks can accept dissimilar levels of potential energy. If 1 is 100 anxiety up and the other is at 500 feet, the higher rock has more potential energy considering it has further to fall.[24]

The Science of Energy:

The principles of energy, based on Newton's Laws, accept helped us understand the world around us likewise as the universe.

What Is Potential Energy in Physics?

Potential energy is the stored or latent energy in an object at residuum. Information technology's fundamental to many physics-related concepts considering its laws agree truthful on any level, from the planetary to the diminutive level.

The potential energy of an object is measurable. The amount it has depends on where the object is located — its free energy of position — and the mass of the object.

Many objects transform their potential free energy into kinetic free energy.

What Is Potential Free energy in Chemistry?

Chemic potential free energy is released when diminutive bonds stored in compounds and elements are broken via chemical processes. This chemical energy is so used in other means, in what is called work. Energy and piece of work are essentially the same things — work is energy in motion.

What Is Kinetic Energy and Potential Energy Formula?

Potential energy, or work, is measured in joules, named after James Prescott Joule, an English mathematician whose work created the formula most free energy and its transference.^[25]

Joule is written with the symbol J in the International System of Units (SI), and the formula is written thus:^[25]

chiliad is the mass of our object^[26]
h is the height of our object^[26]
thousand is the acceleration due to gravity, a constant all over the World^[26]

If we lift our object from the ground to give it potential free energy, the force that would make it accelerate towards the ground is called the magnitude of force (F). Newton's second police is F = mg. ^[26]

Which gives: Gravitational Potential Energy = mgh ^[26]

If we lift a 200 pounds person 100 feet in the air, their potential free energy is 27,116.36 joules. Try this handy figurer to calculate potential free energy.

The kinetic free energy of an object is also measured in joules. Anything that is moving has kinetic energy, but various factors affect how much kinetic energy an object has.

The first factor is speed. If ii identical objects are moving at different speeds, the faster object has more kinetic energy. A moving car traveling at 2 miles per hour has a lot less kinetic free energy — the energy of move — than the aforementioned vehicle traveling 100 miles per hour.

The second gene is mass. If two objects are moving at the same speed, but one of the objects has more mass, the heavier object has more kinetic energy. Using the auto analogy again, a bicycle going at 20 miles per hr has less kinetic energy than a dumpster going at the same speed.

Kinetic energy is noted as East, Ek, or KE. Information technology is half the mass of an object multiplied by its velocity squared. And then it is proportional to mass (m) and proportional to the square of its velocity. The formula is written:^[27]

Kinetic energy: KE = ½ mv2

If our 200-pound person is running at 8 miles per hour, their kinetic energy is J 580.15 joules.

For farther details, you tin can read more about free energy formulas .[28]

It'south All Free energy, Potentially

Potential and kinetic free energy are part of the enormous energy of our universe. They're dissimilar forms of energy, but they are closely linked and are measured using the same units (joules).

Energy is never lost; it merely transforms into other forms of free energy. It'due south useful to know where free energy comes from and how it impacts your day-to-twenty-four hour period life when choosing an energy supplier . Ultimately, it helps united states of america comprehend the environment and our identify in the universe.

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