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In classical mechanics, two or more masses always have a gravitational potential. Conservation of energy requires that this gravitational field energy is always negative, so that it is zero when the objects are infinitely far apart. [1] The gravitational potential energy is the potential energy an object has because it is within a gravitational ...
The negative-energy particle then crosses the event horizon into the black hole, with the law of conservation of energy requiring that an equal amount of positive energy should escape. In the Penrose process , a body divides in two, with one half gaining negative energy and falling in, while the other half gains an equal amount of positive ...
The gravitational potential (V) at a location is the gravitational potential energy (U) at that location per unit mass: =, where m is the mass of the object. Potential energy is equal (in magnitude, but negative) to the work done by the gravitational field moving a body to its given position in space from infinity.
There are various types of potential energy, each associated with a particular type of force. For example, the work of an elastic force is called elastic potential energy; work of the gravitational force is called gravitational potential energy; work of the Coulomb force is called electric potential energy; work of the strong nuclear force or weak nuclear force acting on the baryon charge is ...
The potential has units of energy per mass, e.g., J/kg in the MKS system. By convention, it is always negative where it is defined, and as x tends to infinity, it approaches zero. The gravitational field , and thus the acceleration of a small body in the space around the massive object, is the negative gradient of the gravitational potential.
The left-hand side of this equation is called the flux of the gravitational field. Note that according to the law it is always negative (or zero), and never positive. This can be contrasted with Gauss's law for electricity, where the flux can be either positive or negative.
The first known publication on the topic was in 1973, when Edward Tryon proposed in the journal Nature that the universe emerged from a large-scale quantum fluctuation of vacuum energy, resulting in its positive mass-energy being exactly balanced by its negative gravitational potential energy. [4]
For convenience it is often defined as the negative of the potential energy per unit mass, so that the gravity vector is obtained as the gradient of the geopotential, without the negation. In addition to the actual potential (the geopotential), a theoretical normal potential and their difference, the disturbing potential, can also be defined.