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The adjective kinetic has its roots in the Greek word κίνησις kinesis, meaning "motion".The dichotomy between kinetic energy and potential energy can be traced back to Aristotle's concepts of actuality and potentiality.
In a mechanical system like a swinging pendulum subjected to the conservative gravitational force where frictional forces like air drag and friction at the pivot are negligible, energy passes back and forth between kinetic and potential energy but never leaves the system. The pendulum reaches greatest kinetic energy and least potential energy ...
The energy function in the action principles is not the total energy (conserved in an isolated system), but the Lagrangian, the difference between kinetic and potential energy. The kinetic energy combines the energy of motion for all the objects in the system; the potential energy depends upon the instantaneous position of the objects and ...
The more formal definition is that potential energy is the energy difference between the energy of an object in a given position and its energy at a reference position. History From around 1840 scientists sought to define and understand energy and work . [ 5 ]
In the simple case of a single particle moving with a constant velocity (thereby undergoing uniform linear motion), the action is the momentum of the particle times the distance it moves, added up along its path; equivalently, action is the difference between the particle's kinetic energy and its potential energy, times the duration for which ...
Without friction to dissipate a body's energy into heat, the body's energy will trade between potential and (non-thermal) kinetic forms while the total amount remains constant. Any gain of kinetic energy, which occurs when the net force on the body accelerates it to a higher speed, must be accompanied by a loss of potential energy.
The gravitational potential energy is the potential energy an object has because it is within a gravitational field. The magnitude of the force between a point mass, M {\displaystyle M} , and another point mass, m {\displaystyle m} , is given by Newton's law of gravitation : [ 3 ] F = G M m r 2 {\displaystyle F={\frac {GMm}{r^{2}}}}
And it is from him that the modern distinction between statics and dynamics in physics stems. The emphasis on dunamis in the name of this new science comes from the importance of his discovery of potential energy which is not active, but conserves energy nevertheless. "As 'a science of power and action', dynamics arises when Leibniz proposes an ...