What is Potential Energy?

Potential energy

In physics, potential energy is energy stored in a system of forcefully interacting physical entities. The SI unit for measuring work and energy is the joule (symbol J).
The term potential energy was introduced by the 19th century Scottish engineer and physicist William Rankine,although it has links to Greek philosopher Aristotle's concept of potentiality. Potential energy is associated with forces that act on a body in a way that depends only on the body's position in space. These forces can be represented by vector at every point in space forming what is known as a vector field of forces, or a force field.
If the work of a force field acting on a body that moves from a start to an end position is determined only by these two positions, and does not depend on the trajectory of the body, then there is a function known as potential energy that can be evaluated at the two positions to determine this work. Furthermore, the force field is determined by this potential energy and is described as derivable from a potential.

Potential energy is the energy possessed by an object by virtual of its position (or height) in the gravitational field. Such kind of potential energy is called "Gravitational potential energy".

In an electric field, charges also possess electrical potential energy, which is the energy possessed by a charge by virtual of its position in the field.

A compressed spring also possesses "elastic potential energy", which is the energy possessed by the spring due to its compression.