Energy Summary

There are several posts about energy on physbang. You are welcome to explore these posts at your leisure but this one draws some of them together into a logical sequence: it also links to an online worksheet for practising kinetic energy calculations.

Although explanations often start by talking about different types of energy, I feel it is more helpful to start with the mechanical definition;

work done = force x distance *

* see footnote below

For more information about work done, read this post, which includes a link to a separate post about the different types of energy.

The next step is to explore Gravitational Potential Energy (GPE) and Kinetic Energy (KE) in more detail: that is covered in this post, which includes a link to a downloadable worksheet. More usefully, I have now added an interactive online worksheet that you can complete to practise Kinetic Energy calculations. The new worksheet, which is hosted on liveworksheets.com, can be accessed directly by clicking here.

Finally, there is a logical connection between KE and vehicle stopping distances, which is covered the the post that you can read here.

* Footnote: The reason why it is a better starting point, in my opinion, is that this one equation can be used to explain and calculate all three mechanical energy transfers (GPE, KE and strain energy). It is easy to demonstrate the link between work done and GPE but the other two types of energy are less obvious and are left as an exercise for keen students to complete: come and see me if you are eager to do this but need help.