Electrical Potential & Electrical PE

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

plzNOCarribbean

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
May 21, 2010
Messages
496
Reaction score
4
Hey guys, I am going to apologize in advance and thank anyone who can answer the following questions. I haven't taken Phys II yet but my MCAT is 2 months away so i've taken a shot at learning it, however I am a bit confused. If someone could clarify these things , it would be greatly appreciated:

Ok, so the electrical potential energy of a particle is just how much energy is stored in that particle that can do work and be converted to KE?

this is DIFFERENT from electrical potential, which is denoted as the amount of potential ENERGY of the particle divided by the charge of the particle? So, is the DIFFERENCE in electrical potential just the difference in the amount of energy, irrespective of charge, between two points???? Also, is this the same thing as volts. If someone could make the connection between voltage and the difference in Electrical potential.

Lastly, does a positively charged particle want to move to a area of LOWER electrical potential? and vice verse, a neg charge ==> moves towards Higher electrical potential. For Example:

If you have a negative charge, and it moves towards a positive source charge, or towards the (+) field, it is moving to an area of HIGHER electrical potential?? The book says when this happens the change in PE is negative...why? is it because its movement towards the field is converting its PE to KE, but why would PE be negative?? is the sign negative bc PE is decreased and KE is increased bc W=KE+PE or is it for some other reason that I completely missed. Sorry about the long post guys!!!😀😀 Thank you to anyone who can clarify any of these things as it is taking a long time (and very frustrating I might add) to cover this material.

Members don't see this ad.
 
For the last example (an electron moving towards a proton or whatever), the electric potential energy is decreasing (just like gravitational potential would decrease as I came closer to the earth = mgh). So, initial PE is greater than final PE, and deltaPE = P(final) - P(initial) = negative PE.

For the electric potential, you'll need to draw the field lines, because the potential is a field. deltaV (voltage) is the potential difference and is always relative between two sources of potential. The electric potential uses a test charge, and will therefore only include one formal charge q(1). (q0 is the test charge)
 
Top