Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

Energy Is Everything

What is kinetic energy?

Kinetic energy is the type of energy associated with the movement of an object. Faster-moving objects have more kinetic energy, and the kinetic energy of an object is related to its mass, m, and velocity, v, by the equation:

This tells us that, for example, if we have two objects of equal mass and one is moving twice as fast as the other, the faster-moving object will have four times the energy of the slower object.

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In this illustration, a horse pulls a pendulum into a position where it is about to be released to swing freely. Before it is released, the weight at the end of the pendulum has potential energy (A), and when the pendulum is in full swing, it has kinetic energy (B).

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