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Citizen Science No. 17 by Jamie Zvirzdin Energy Demystified: Bounce Back This Summer with Elastic Potential Energy What do ballpoint pens, Slinkies, your muscles and tendons, and my dog’s running leash have in common? Last month we talked about potential energy (PE for short). It’s a beautiful, invisible physics quantity that stores energy based on where something is placed, like a book on a high shelf. The book now has the potential to fall, but it hasn’t fallen yet. While…
Potential energy is the energy stored in an object because of its position, condition or state. It’s the energy of anticipation, the calm before the storm, the coil in the spring, the water held back by the dam, the double-A battery fresh from the factory, the caterpillar before the butterfly, that butterfly and all his friends and relatives in your stomach right before the roller coaster’s plunge.…