Where is potential energy stored?

Soldato
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Say i lift a rock and place it on the table, they say it has potential energy so it may fall back down, yet where is this 'energy' stored if neither the rock or earths gravitational field has changed?
 
it is stored in the objects position in relation to where it could fall too. (second part of your sentence makes little sense to me.)

mass would have more impact on the potential energy.

That is how I would put it.

Potential energy is funny to describe, but quite easy to understand imo.
 
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The potential energy is stored within the gravitational field in your example.

Think of the gravitational field like a spring.
 
It's potential energy, it's not strictly tangeable energy, not like the energy stored in an elastic band. and the equation is E=mgh by the way. m=mass g=9.8 h=height in metres... This equation is only true for bodies on the surface of the earth.
 
So imagine we have two planets close to each other, the mavity would pull and they would collide, this would cause super heating and an incredible amount of energy would be released in the form of heat and light, this would radiate off into space, now that energy is gone what has changed?
 
In an invisible 'elastic band' type effect made up of mavity originating from the bottom of the mavity well to the location the object is placed. < in all likely hood is complete ********

I dunno really, bit weird to describe.
 
So imagine we have two planets close to each other, the mavity would pull and they would collide, this would cause super heating and an incredible amount of energy would be released in the form of heat and light, this would radiate off into space, now that energy is gone what has changed?

It has changed into another type of energy.

Simply.

Energy can only be converted, not lost or destroyed.

(Although it may appear to be lost to us)

AFAIK
 
So imagine we have two planets close to each other, the mavity would pull and they would collide, this would cause super heating and an incredible amount of energy would be released in the form of heat and light, this would radiate off into space, now that energy is gone what has changed?

what do you mean what has changed?.. as i said gravitational potential energy is rather relative. It's not so much a store of energy, and mavity itself is not energy, or else it would run out, which it does not. The heat+light energy has been produced by high pressures/fusion, nothing to do with mavity (except for being the cause of the pressure). The mavity still exists, in the matter.
 
This is a very basic approach, without getting too bogged down on entropy and exergy etc.

Potential energy is defined as:

PE = mgh

where
PE - Potential Energy
m - mass of the object
g - gravitational field constant
h - change in height

Since the mass of the object, and gravitational field constant do not change with respect to any height we know these will not effect the potential energy. However, looking at our equation we know if we change the value of h, which is height, then this will effect the potential energy. Hence we can say the potential energy storred "is its ability to do work", and is storred in this case by varying heights.
 
I don't understand where a lone planets energy is stored in this scenario, if two lone planets become one and give off all that energy in the collision where did it come from?
 
While potential energy has real world applications and is essential to working some things out it doesn't really exist anywhere, it just fills out one side of an equation.

It also lets us say energy is never created or destroyed, just changed.
 
Say i lift a rock and place it on the table, they say it has potential energy so it may fall back down, yet where is this 'energy' stored if neither the rock or earths gravitational field has changed?

The clue is that it's called potential energy, so the energy doesn't necessarily exist.

The energy comes from the fact that the rock would have been created below the height of the table. Therefore, for it to have gotten to the height of the table, energy must have been used to transfer it upwards, this is where pe comes from :)
 
While potential energy has real world applications and is essential to working some things out it doesn't really exist anywhere, it just fills out one side of an equation.

It also lets us say energy is never created or destroyed, just changed.

If energy can't be created or destroyed doesn't that kind of suggest the universe/energy has always existed in some way forever?
 
I don't understand where a lone planets energy is stored in this scenario, if two lone planets become one and give off all that energy in the collision where did it come from?

A lone planet is doing work on its surroundings. It is rotating on an axis at some angular velocity, and at the same time orbiting a star. The planet will continue to have potential energy unless another body stops it. This is true when considering Newtons Second Law (which breaks down quite substancially when considering astronomical bodies) but is still true generally, in that, a body will continue to exhibit a force unless an equal and opposite force stops it.

The original energy may have come from many sources such as planetary collisions from astroids, supernova etc.
 
If energy can't be created or destroyed doesn't that kind of suggest the universe/energy has always existed in some way forever?

wooo, you've turned a simple question into a thread ****er, thats a biiiig topic. All it suggests is that the energy in the universe, since its creation has stayed constant, the mass however does not have had to. You're asking questions with no real answers im afraid, as before the Big bang, all physics breaks down, there are no answers, like the behind the event horison of a black hole, i could say there are hundered of pink cows, and i would be as correct as anyone else's suggestion. Simple answer is before the big bang we have no way of knowing.
 
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