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The kinetic energy is equal to 1/2 the product of the mass and the square of the speed. In formula form: where is the mass and is the speed (magnitude of the velocity) of the body. In SI units, mass is measured in kilograms, speed in metres per second, and the resulting kinetic energy is in joules.
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.
General. Energy is a scalar quantity and the mechanical energy of a system is the sum of the potential energy (which is measured by the position of the parts of the system) and the kinetic energy (which is also called the energy of motion): [1][2] The potential energy, U, depends on the position of an object subjected to gravity or some other ...
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 ...
Lagrangian. [edit] Instead of forces, Lagrangian mechanics uses the energies in the system. The central quantity of Lagrangian mechanics is the Lagrangian, a function which summarizes the dynamics of the entire system. Overall, the Lagrangian has units of energy, but no single expression for all physical systems.
Maxwell–Boltzmann. In physics (in particular in statistical mechanics), the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, or Maxwell (ian) distribution, is a particular probability distribution named after James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann. It was first defined and used for describing particle speeds in idealized gases, where the particles move ...
An elliptical orbit is depicted in the top-right quadrant of this diagram, where the gravitational potential well of the central mass shows potential energy, and the kinetic energy of the orbital speed is shown in red. The height of the kinetic energy decreases as the orbiting body's speed decreases and distance increases according to Kepler's ...
A thermodynamic potential (or more accurately, a thermodynamic potential energy) [1][2] is a scalar quantity used to represent the thermodynamic state of a system. Just as in mechanics, where potential energy is defined as capacity to do work, similarly different potentials have different meanings. The concept of thermodynamic potentials was ...