Mission WE3 Kinetic and Potential Energy
Hold down the T key for 3 seconds to activate the audio accessibility mode, at which point you can click the K key to pause and resume audio. Useful for the Check Your Understanding and See Answers.
An object will definitely have potential energy if it is _____.
Potential energy is the energy stored in an object due to its position. The most common type of potential energy - gravitational potential energy - is the energy stored in an object due to its vertical position relative to the ground or some zero level.
Many students confuse potential energy with kinetic energy. Such students gain the incorrect notion that if an object has kinetic energy, then it does not have potential energy (or vice versa). But don't be fooled! Such an idea is not correct. Objects can have both kinetic energy and potential energy at the same time. An object can be moving (have kinetic energy) and be elevated above the ground at the same time (and also have potential energy). A baseball, a plane, a flying bird are all simple examples of this. In order to have potential energy, the object simply has to have a nonzero height.
