Re: [Phys-l] Configurational energy

["Jacques Rutschmann" <jr@colororange.com>]

John Denker wrote:

> 4) In physics and related disciplines, "potential" means positional, and has been used in this
sense more-or-less consistently since about 1840 (or perhaps earlier;  I don't know).  This extends
to gravitational potential, electrostatic potential, et cetera.  By a further extension, any
functions of state are called thermodynamic potentials e.g. chemical potential, Gibbs potential, et
cetera (which exist in an abstract state-space, not in prosaic position-space).

This is helpful! I always believed that "potential" meant in physics that the force (or more
abstract quantities) could be computed by taking the grad (*) of the "potential"... I always found
very disturbing that the gradients of the numerous thermodynamics potentials were of no interest. 
(*) or maybe rotational for the electromagnetic potential vector.

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