electric potential energy
Sign in to saveAlso known as electrostatic potential energy, electrostatic energy
potential energy that results from conservative Coulomb forces
Key facts
- Common symbols
- U E
- Si unit
- joule (J)
- Derivations from other quantities
- U E = C · V / 2
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- form of energy
- Subclass of
- physical quantity
- Part of
- electromagnetic energy
Show 4 more facts
- Commons category
- Electric potential energy
- measurement scale
- joule
- different from
- electric potential
- maintained by WikiProject
- WikiProject Mathematics
via Wikidata · CC0
~19 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Electric potential energy is a potential energy (measured in joules) that results from conservative Coulomb forces and is associated with the configuration of a particular set of point charges within a defined system. An object may be said to have electric potential energy by virtue of either its own electric charge or its relative position to other electrically charged objects.
The term "electric potential energy" is used to describe the potential energy in systems with time-variant electric fields, while the term "electrostatic potential energy" is used to describe the potential energy in systems with time-invariant electric fields.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “electric potential energy” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.