Gravitational Potential Energy
Gravitational energy or gravitational potential energy is the potential energy an object with mass has due to the gravitational potential of its position in a gravitational field. Mathematically, it is the minimum Work (physics), mechanical work that has to be done against the gravitational force to bring a mass from a chosen reference point (often an "infinite distance" from the mass generating the field) to some other point in the field, which is equal to the change in the kinetic energy, kinetic energies of the objects as they Free fall, fall towards each other. Gravitational potential energy increases when two objects are brought further apart and is converted to kinetic energy as they are allowed to fall towards each other. Formulation For two pairwise interacting point particles, the gravitational potential energy U is the work that an outside agent must do in order to quasi-statically bring the masses together (which is therefore, exactly opposite the work done by the gravit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gravitational Field Earth Lines Equipotentials
In physics, gravity (), also known as gravitation or a gravitational interaction, is a fundamental interaction, a mutual attraction between all massive particles. Gravity of Earth, On Earth, gravity takes a slightly different meaning: the observed force between objects and the Earth. This force is dominated by the combined gravitational interactions of particles but also includes effect of the Earth's rotation. Gravity gives weight to physical objects and is essential to understanding the mechanisms responsible for surface water gravity waves, waves and lunar tides. Gravity also has many important biological functions, helping to guide the growth of plants through the process of gravitropism and influencing the Circulatory system, circulation of fluids in multicellular organisms. The gravitational attraction between primordial hydrogen and clumps of dark matter in the early universe caused the hydrogen gas to coalescence (physics), coalesce, eventually condensing and fusing ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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General Relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. General theory of relativity, relativity generalizes special relativity and refines Newton's law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time in physics, time, or four-dimensional spacetime. In particular, the ''curvature of spacetime'' is directly related to the energy and momentum of whatever is present, including matter and radiation. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations, a system of second-order partial differential equations. Newton's law of universal gravitation, which describes gravity in classical mechanics, can be seen as a prediction of general relativity for the almost flat spacetime geometry around stationary mass ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Forms Of Energy
Energy () is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat and light. Energy is a conserved quantity—the law of conservation of energy states that energy can be converted in form, but not created or destroyed. The unit of measurement for energy in the International System of Units (SI) is the joule (J). Forms of energy include the kinetic energy of a moving object, the potential energy stored by an object (for instance due to its position in a field), the elastic energy stored in a solid object, chemical energy associated with chemical reactions, the radiant energy carried by electromagnetic radiation, the internal energy contained within a thermodynamic system, and rest energy associated with an object's rest mass. These are not mutually exclusive. All living organisms constantly take in and release energy. The Earth's climate and ecosystems processes are driven pri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Positive Energy Theorem
The positive energy theorem (also known as the positive mass theorem) refers to a collection of foundational results in general relativity and differential geometry. Its standard form, broadly speaking, asserts that the gravitational energy of an isolated system is nonnegative, and can only be zero when the system has no gravitating objects. Although these statements are often thought of as being primarily physical in nature, they can be formalized as mathematical theorems which can be proven using techniques of differential geometry, partial differential equations, and geometric measure theory. Richard Schoen and Shing-Tung Yau, in 1979 and 1981, were the first to give proofs of the positive mass theorem. Edward Witten, in 1982, gave the outlines of an alternative proof, which were later filled in rigorously by mathematicians. Witten and Yau were awarded the Fields medal in mathematics in part for their work on this topic. An imprecise formulation of the Schoen-Yau / Witten pos ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gravitational Potential Energy Storage
Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time to reduce imbalances between energy demand and energy production. A device that stores energy is generally called an accumulator or battery. Energy comes in multiple forms including radiation, chemical, gravitational potential, electrical potential, electricity, elevated temperature, latent heat and kinetic. Energy storage involves converting energy from forms that are difficult to store to more conveniently or economically storable forms. Some technologies provide short-term energy storage, while others can endure for much longer. Bulk energy storage is currently dominated by hydroelectric dams, both conventional as well as pumped. Grid energy storage is a collection of methods used for energy storage on a large scale within an electrical power grid. Common examples of energy storage are the rechargeable battery, which stores chemical energy readily convertible to electricity to operate a m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gravitational Potential
In classical mechanics, the gravitational potential is a scalar potential associating with each point in space the work (energy transferred) per unit mass that would be needed to move an object to that point from a fixed reference point in the conservative gravitational field. It is analogous to the electric potential with mass playing the role of charge. The reference point, where the potential is zero, is by convention infinitely far away from any mass, resulting in a negative potential at any finite distance. Their similarity is correlated with both associated fields having conservative forces. Mathematically, the gravitational potential is also known as the Newtonian potential and is fundamental in the study of potential theory. It may also be used for solving the electrostatic and magnetostatic fields generated by uniformly charged or polarized ellipsoidal bodies. Potential energy The gravitational potential (''V'') at a location is the gravitational potential ener ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gravitational Binding Energy
The gravitational binding energy of a system is the minimum energy which must be added to it in order for the system to cease being in a gravitationally bound state. A gravitationally bound system has a lower (''i.e.'', more negative) gravitational potential energy than the sum of the energies of its parts when these are completely separated—this is what keeps the system aggregated in accordance with the minimum total potential energy principle. The gravitational binding energy can be conceptually different within the theories of Newtonian gravity and Albert Einstein's theory of gravity called General Relativity. In Newtonian gravity, the binding energy can be considered to be the linear sum of the interactions between all pairs of microscopic components of the system, while in General Relativity, this is only approximately true if the gravitational fields are all weak. When stronger fields are present within a system, the binding energy is a nonlinear property of the sy ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tensor
In mathematics, a tensor is an algebraic object that describes a multilinear relationship between sets of algebraic objects associated with a vector space. Tensors may map between different objects such as vectors, scalars, and even other tensors. There are many types of tensors, including scalars and vectors (which are the simplest tensors), dual vectors, multilinear maps between vector spaces, and even some operations such as the dot product. Tensors are defined independent of any basis, although they are often referred to by their components in a basis related to a particular coordinate system; those components form an array, which can be thought of as a high-dimensional matrix. Tensors have become important in physics because they provide a concise mathematical framework for formulating and solving physics problems in areas such as mechanics ( stress, elasticity, quantum mechanics, fluid mechanics, moment of inertia, ...), electrodynamics ( electromagnetic ten ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pseudotensor
In physics and mathematics, a pseudotensor is usually a quantity that transforms like a tensor under an orientation-preserving coordinate transformation (e.g. a proper rotation) but additionally changes sign under an orientation-reversing coordinate transformation (e.g., an improper rotation), which is a transformation that can be expressed as a proper rotation followed by reflection. This is a generalization of a ''pseudovector''. To evaluate a tensor or pseudotensor sign, it has to be contracted with some vectors, as many as its rank is, belonging to the space where the rotation is made while keeping the tensor coordinates unaffected (differently from what one does in the case of a base change). Under improper rotation a pseudotensor and a proper tensor of the same rank will have different sign which depends on the rank being even or odd. Sometimes inversion of the axes is used as an example of an improper rotation to see the behaviour of a pseudotensor, but it works only if v ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Divergence
In vector calculus, divergence is a vector operator that operates on a vector field, producing a scalar field giving the rate that the vector field alters the volume in an infinitesimal neighborhood of each point. (In 2D this "volume" refers to area.) More precisely, the divergence at a point is the rate that the flow of the vector field modifies a volume about the point ''in the limit'', as a small volume shrinks down to the point. As an example, consider air as it is heated or cooled. The velocity of the air at each point defines a vector field. While air is heated in a region, it expands in all directions, and thus the velocity field points outward from that region. The divergence of the velocity field in that region would thus have a positive value. While the air is cooled and thus contracting, the divergence of the velocity has a negative value. Physical interpretation of divergence In physical terms, the divergence of a vector field is the extent to which the vector fi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Four-vector
In special relativity, a four-vector (or 4-vector, sometimes Lorentz vector) is an object with four components, which transform in a specific way under Lorentz transformations. Specifically, a four-vector is an element of a four-dimensional vector space considered as a representation space of the standard representation of the Lorentz group, the (,) representation. It differs from a Euclidean vector in how its magnitude is determined. The transformations that preserve this magnitude are the Lorentz transformations, which include spatial rotations and boosts (a change by a constant velocity to another inertial reference frame). Four-vectors describe, for instance, position in spacetime modeled as Minkowski space, a particle's four-momentum , the amplitude of the electromagnetic four-potential at a point in spacetime, and the elements of the subspace spanned by the gamma matrices inside the Dirac algebra. The Lorentz group may be represented by 4×4 matrices . The act ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stress–energy Tensor
The stress–energy tensor, sometimes called the stress–energy–momentum tensor or the energy–momentum tensor, is a tensor physical quantity that describes the density and flux of energy and momentum in spacetime, generalizing the stress tensor of Newtonian physics. It is an attribute of matter, radiation, and non-gravitational force fields. This density and flux of energy and momentum are the sources of the gravitational field in the Einstein field equations of general relativity, just as mass density is the source of such a field in Newtonian gravity. Definition The stress–energy tensor involves the use of superscripted variables ( exponents; see ''Tensor index notation'' and '' Einstein summation notation''). If Cartesian coordinates in SI units are used, then the components of the position four-vector are given by: . In traditional Cartesian coordinates these are instead customarily written , where is coordinate time, and , , and are coordinate distances. Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |