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Encyclopedia > Potential

In physics, a potential may refer to the scalar potential or to the vector potential. In either case, it is a field defined in space, from which many important physical properties may be derived. Leading examples are the gravitational potential and the electric potential, from which the motion of gravitating or electrically charged bodies may be obtained. A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Potential. ... In vector calculus, a vector potential is a vector field whose curl is a given vector field. ... The magnitude of an electric field surrounding two equally charged (repelling) particles. ... In physics, gravitational potential is the measure of potential energy an object possesses due to its position in a gravitational field. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...


Many entities in physics may be described as vector fields, but it is often easier to work with the corresponding potentials as proxies for the fields themselves. For instance, some force fields exert forces on a body equal to the product of the field and some invariant scalar property of the body, such as the mass or charge. As a body moves through such a force field, it rises and falls in the field's potential, gaining and losing energy through mechanical work. This exchange of energy allows the interaction to be analyzed in terms of simple laws of conservation of energy, without resorting to kinematics, which can be computationally difficult. Originally a term coined by Michael Faraday to provide an intuitive paradigm, but theoretical construct (in the Kuhnian sense), for the behavior of electromagnetic fields, the term force field refers to the lines of force one object (the source object) exerts on another object or a collection of other objects. ... In physics, a net force acting on a body causes that body to accelerate; that is, to change its velocity. ... In physics, a scalar is a simple physical quantity that does not depend on direction, and therefore does not depend on the choice of a coordinate system. ... Potential difference is a quantity in physics related to the amount of energy that would be required to move an object from one place to another against various types of force. ... In physics, mechanical work is the amount of energy transferred by a force. ... Conservation of energy states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant, although it may change forms (for instance, friction turns kinetic energy into thermal energy). ... In physics, kinematics is the branch of mechanics concerned with the motions of objects without being concerned with the forces that cause the motion. ...


The gravitational field is a notable example of such a field. The electric field also behaves this way in many cases, though in the general case it does not (see Electric potential and Faraday's Law). The gravitational field is a field (physics), generated by massive objects, that determines the magnitude and direction of gravitation experienced by other massive objects. ... In physics, the space surrounding an electric charge or in the presence of a time-varying magnetic field has a property called an electric field. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Faradays law can mean: Faradays law of induction (electromagnetic fields) Faradays law of electrolysis Category: ...


The mathematical study of potentials is known as potential theory; it is the study of harmonic functions on manifolds. This mathematical formulation arises from the fact that, in physics, the scalar potential is irrotational, and thus has a vanishing Laplacian -- the very definition of a harmonic function. Potential theory may be defined as the study of harmonic functions. ... In mathematics, mathematical physics and the theory of stochastic processes, a harmonic function is a twice continuously differentiable function f : U → R (where U is an open subset of Rn) which satisfies Laplaces equation, i. ... On a sphere, the sum of the angles of a triangle is not equal to 180°. A sphere is not a Euclidean space, but locally the laws of the Euclidean geometry are good approximations. ... In fluid mechanics, an irrotational vector field is a vector field whose curl is zero. ... In vector calculus, the Laplace operator or Laplacian is a differential operator equal to the sum of all the unmixed second partial derivatives of a dependent variable. ...


Specific forces have associated potentials, including the Coulomb potential, the van der Waals potential, the Lennard-Jones potential and the Yukawa potential. Electric potential is the potential energy per unit of charge associated with a static (time-invariant) electric field, also called the electrostatic potential, typically measured in volts. ... In chemistry van der Waals forces are a sometimes used as a synonym for non-covalent or intermolecular forces—forces that are weak compared to those appearing in covalent bonding. ... Neutral atoms and molecules are subject to two distinct forces in the limit of large distance, and short distance: an attractive van der Waals force, or dispersion force, at long ranges, and a repulsion force, the result of overlapping electron orbitals, referred to as Pauli repulsion (from Pauli exclusion principle). ... A Yukawa potential (also called a screened Coulomb potential) is a potential of the form Hideki Yukawa showed in the 1930s that such a potential arises from the exchange of a massive scalar field such as the field of the pion whose mass is . ...


See also


  Results from FactBites:
 
Potential Energy (993 words)
The gravitational potential energy of the massive ball of a demolition machine is dependent on two variables - the mass of the ball and the height to which it is raised.
Since the gravitational potential energy of an object is directly proportional to its height above the zero position, a doubling of the height will result in a doubling of the gravitational potential energy.
The reason for the relation between the potential energy change of the cart and the work done upon it is the subject of Lesson 2.
Neuroscience for Kids - Action Potential (767 words)
The resting membrane potential of a neuron is about -70 mV (mV=millivolt) - this means that the inside of the neuron is 70 mV less than the outside.
Also, when the threshold level is reached, an action potential of a fixed sized will always fire...for any given neuron, the size of the action potential is always the same.
Action potentials are caused by an exchange of ions across the neuron membrane.
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