Timeline for Why doesn't gravitational potential energy cancel out?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
3 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 16, 2017 at 18:56 | vote | accept | Pancake_Senpai | ||
| Nov 16, 2017 at 18:55 | comment | added | Pancake_Senpai | After reading your answer I realised that my problem came from a misunderstanding of what the conventional way of writing potential energy (which I have used in my question) actually means. Namely, it is the energy needed to reach infinity from that point. Of course, work needs to be done to move the planet from it's location to an infinite distance away from all mass, so using this convention its potential energy cannot be 0. | |
| Nov 16, 2017 at 9:53 | history | answered | Farcher | CC BY-SA 3.0 |