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Re: [Phys-L] defining energy


On 2013, Oct 30, , at 10:15, "John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org> wrote:

This is a simple idea. If you have a ball in space without any
gravitational attraction, you can not have gravitational potential energy.
But if you have a ball on Earth you can define the gravitational potential
energy. But if you have no ball, again this is not possible. So you must
have both the Earth and the ball to know the gravitational potential energy
of this system.


I feared that's what you meant, but, literally, I think you implied g had an unusual field in that it lacked inherent energy.


On 2013, Oct 29, , at 22:05, "John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org> wrote:

In other words one has to have
both the Earth and the object to have energy and neither alone has


potential
gravitational ^ energy.

bc still wrong?