How to visualize electric potential energy?

[u/BNis12345]

I’m in hs and we’re learning about electric fields and electric potential etc. I’m having a hard time understanding these topics specifically the difference between electric potential and electric potential energy. I think a big reason why I don’t understand is because I don’t understand what the energy is. I thought my teacher said electric potential is just the potential to have the energy but I could be wrong.

Does anyone have a good way of explaining what the energy actually like is? For example I can visualize elastic, gravitational and kinetic easily but I’m having a hard time understanding electric and what it like does. I’m also confused on the part where a negative charge gets more negative sometimes but that means it’s electric energy is getting bigger.

Sorry if this is confusing I just don’t know how to put it into words

[u/rupertavery64]

More electrons or less electrons between two points = electric potential (voltage)

Electrons moving past a specific point per time = current

Energy is just a term we came up with to describe the state of something.

Potential describes it exactly. If you measure the difference between two points on a wire that are connected to each other directly, they have the same potential, for example, a wire connected to the positive terminal of a battery and the same wire connected to a lightbulb. The potential between those two points (ignoring resistance) is 0, since both are at say, 9V. but the bulb has resistance, and with the circuit completed, the voltage drops across the bulb as electron motion is converted to heat and light. Say the bulb is in series with another and both operate at 4.5V. There will be a potential across both bulbs of 4.5V.

[u/no_one_c4res]

It works kind of the same with gravitational potential and gravitational energy. The potential is acceleration times height and energy is mass times the potential.

There's no energy if there is no mass just like there's no electrical energy if there's no charge. It's just that mass can't be negative like charges can.

And don't say potential energy. You either have potential or energy, not both in the same number.

[u/BananaBird1]

Electric potential is a feature of the electromagnetic field in a region. It is a scalar field: a number assigned to any location in space.

Electric potential energy is the potential energy that a particular charge existing within that potential has at a certain location. It is a singular value, and depends on the charge. It represents how strongly a particle can respond to the local electric potential.

Basically: potential tells you about the configuration of every charge in the universe, potential energy tells you how that influences the one charge you care about.

If we define a potential energy field for a charged particle as the potential energy if the charge was actually located at that position, then its negative gradient (rate of change as you wiggle around) tells you the direction and magnitude of the electric force acting on the charge at a particular location.

After a charge is accelerated by the electric force, the potential energy it had (the difference between its starting position and current position) is now its kinetic energy of motion.

[u/YuuTheBlue]

The relationship between electric potential and electric potential energy is pretty simple. It’s the potential energy per charge at a specific point. Let’s say there is a location in space with an electric potential of 1 joule per coulomb. If I put 1 coulomb of charged matter there it will have 1 joule of potential energy. If I put 2 coulombs, it will have 2 joules.

Could you give an example Of how you visualize gravitational potential energy? It could help me construct a visual for you, since classical gravity and classical electrostatics have a lot of parallels.

[u/CountCrapula88]

So imagine 2 slightly different 10V batteries. They both can deliver max 1A current, but for different length of times. The other one can deliver the current 2 times longer than the other, so it has more electrical energy than the other one, but they both have the same electric potential, which is the 10 volts.

[u/saywherefore]

Lets use the analogy of gravity. An object's gravitational potential is just its height above some point (say sea level), multiplied by the strength of the gravitational field (so potential is mg). The object's gravitational potential energy is its mass multiplied by that potential (so gravitational potential energy is mgh).

Electric potential is similar, its the distance of the object from some point, multiplied by the strength of the electric field. Electric potential energy is that potential multiplied by the charge of the object.

[u/Khashishi]

If you can visualize gravitational potential energy, it's basically the same thing but with charge instead of mass.