Potential generally refers to a currently unrealized

ability Abilities are powers an agent has to perform various actions. They include common abilities, like walking, and rare abilities, like performing a double backflip. Abilities are intelligent powers: they are guided by the person's intention and exec ...

. The term is used in a wide variety of fields, from

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

to the

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...

to indicate things that are in a state where they are able to change in ways ranging from the simple release of energy by objects to the realization of abilities in people. The

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

incorporated this concept into his theory of

potentiality and actuality In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are a pair of closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his ''Physics'', ''Metaphysics'', ''Nicomachean Ethics'', and ''De Anima''. The c ...

, a pair of closely connected principles which he used to analyze

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and mea ...

causality Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cau ...

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...

, and

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

in his ''

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

'', ''

Metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

'', ''

Nicomachean Ethics The ''Nicomachean Ethics'' (; ; grc, Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια, ) is Aristotle's best-known work on ethics, the science of the good for human life, which is the goal or end at which all our actions aim. (I§2) The aim of the inquiry is ...

'', and ''

De Anima ''On the Soul'' (Greek: , ''Peri Psychēs''; Latin: ''De Anima'') is a major treatise written by Aristotle c. 350 BC. His discussion centres on the kinds of souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different op ...

'', which is about the human

psyche Psyche (''Psyché'' in French) is the Greek term for "soul" (ψυχή). Psyche may also refer to: Psychology * Psyche (psychology), the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious * ''Psyche'', an 1846 book about the unconscious by Car ...

. That which is potential can theoretically be made actual by taking the right action; for example, a boulder on the edge of a cliff has potential to fall that could be actualized by pushing it over the edge. Several languages have a

potential mood In linguistics, irrealis moods (abbreviated ) are the main set of grammatical moods that indicate that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened at the moment the speaker is talking. This contrasts with the realis moods. Every ...

, a grammatical construction that indicates that something is potential. These include

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

.Ratnakar Narale, ''Sanskrit for English Speaking People'' (2004), p. 332. In physics, a potential may refer to the

scalar potential In mathematical physics, scalar potential, simply stated, describes the situation where the difference in the potential energies of an object in two different positions depends only on the positions, not upon the path taken by the object in trav ...

or to the

vector potential In vector calculus, a vector potential is a vector field whose curl is a given vector field. This is analogous to a ''scalar potential'', which is a scalar field whose gradient is a given vector field. Formally, given a vector field v, a ''vecto ...

. In either case, it is a field defined in space, from which many important physical properties may be derived. Leading examples are the

gravitational potential In classical mechanics, the gravitational potential at a location is equal to the work (energy transferred) per unit mass that would be needed to move an object to that location from a fixed reference location. It is analogous to the electric po ...

and the

electric potential The electric potential (also called the ''electric field potential'', potential drop, the electrostatic potential) is defined as the amount of work energy needed to move a unit of electric charge from a reference point to the specific point in ...

, from which the motion of gravitating or electrically charged bodies may be obtained. Specific forces have associated potentials, including the

Coulomb potential The electric potential (also called the ''electric field potential'', potential drop, the electrostatic potential) is defined as the amount of work energy needed to move a unit of electric charge from a reference point to the specific point in ...

, the

van der Waals potential In molecular physics, the van der Waals force is a distance-dependent interaction between atoms or molecules. Unlike ionic or covalent bonds, these attractions do not result from a chemical electronic bond; they are comparatively weak and the ...

, the

Lennard-Jones potential The Lennard-Jones potential (also termed the LJ potential or 12-6 potential) is an intermolecular pair potential. Out of all the intermolecular potentials, the Lennard-Jones potential is probably the one that has been the most extensively studied ...

and the

Yukawa potential In particle, atomic and condensed matter physics, a Yukawa potential (also called a screened Coulomb potential) is a potential named after the Japanese physicist Hideki Yukawa. The potential is of the form: :V_\text(r)= -g^2\frac, where is a m ...

. In electrochemistry there are

Galvani potential In electrochemistry, the Galvani potential (also called Galvani potential difference, or inner potential difference, Δφ, delta phi) is the electric potential difference between two points in the bulk of two phases. These phases can be two differ ...

Volta potential The Volta potential (also called Volta potential difference, contact potential difference, outer potential difference, Δψ, or "delta psi") in electrochemistry, is the electrostatic potential difference between two metals (or one metal and one ele ...

electrode potential In electrochemistry, electrode potential is the electromotive force of a galvanic cell built from a standard reference electrode and another electrode to be characterized. By convention, the reference electrode is the standard hydrogen electrode (S ...

, and

standard electrode potential In electrochemistry, standard electrode potential E^\ominus, or E^\ominus_, is a measure of the reducing power of any element or compound. The IUPAC "Gold Book" defines it as: ''"the value of the standard emf (electromotive force) of a cell in wh ...

. In the

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...

, the term ''potential'' often refers to thermodynamic potential.

References

{{Authority control

Potentials Potential generally refers to a currently unrealized ability, in a wide variety of fields from physics to the social sciences. Mathematics and physics * Scalar potential, a scalar field whose gradient is a given vector field * Vector potential ...