Editing Potential energy (section)

== History ==
From around 1840 scientists sought to define and understand energy and [[work (physics)|work]].<ref name=SmithEnergy>{{Cite book| last = Smith | first = Crosbie | title = The Science of Energy – a Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain | publisher = The University of Chicago Press | date = 1998 | isbn = 0-226-76420-6}}</ref>
The term "potential energy" was coined by [[William Rankine]] a Scottish engineer and physicist in 1853 as part of a specific effort to develop terminology.<ref name=Rankin1853>William John Macquorn Rankine (1853) "On the general law of the transformation of energy", ''Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow'', vol. 3, no. 5, pages 276–280; reprinted in: '''(1)''' ''Philosophical Magazine'', series 4, vol. 5, no. 30, [https://books.google.com/books?id=3Ov22-gFMnEC&pg=PA106 pp. 106–117] (February 1853); and '''(2)''' W. J. Millar, ed., ''Miscellaneous Scientific Papers: by W. J. Macquorn Rankine'', ... (London, England: Charles Griffin and Co., 1881), part II, [https://books.google.com/books?id=-kRB9v6KRvsC&pg=PA203 pp. 203–208].</ref> He chose the term as part of the pair "actual" vs "potential" going back to work by [[Aristotle]]. In his 1867 discussion of the same topic Rankine describes potential energy as 'energy of configuration' in contrast to actual energy as 'energy of activity'. Also in 1867, [[Lord Kelvin|William Thomson]] introduced "kinetic energy" as the opposite of "potential energy", asserting that all actual energy took the form of {{sfrac|1|2}}{{itco|''mv''}}<sup>2</sup>. Once this hypothesis became widely accepted, the term "actual energy" gradually faded.<ref name=Roche2003>{{cite journal |last1=Roche |first1=John |title=What is potential energy? |journal=European Journal of Physics |date=1 March 2003 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=185–196 |doi=10.1088/0143-0807/24/2/359 |s2cid=250895349 |url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0143-0807/24/2/359 |access-date=15 February 2023}}</ref>