# Is electric potential a field?

I'm just learning about electric potential in my second-semester physics class. My textbook is emphasizing the fact that electric potential is a property of the source charges and that I'll soon learn how electric potential and electric field are related.

In the meantime, I wonder if electric potential is a field in the same sense that electric field is. Can we draw electric potential field maps like we do for the electric field? I would suppose not, since electric potential is a scalar and not a vector. How should I picture electric potential then?

• I think it's a scalar field. For every point in space, there is a value of $V$. $V(x, y, z)$. Whether or not the potential represents a real physical field ... I'll leave that to the philosophers. – garyp Dec 1 '15 at 19:54
• There are a lot of semantic issues that could be addressed here. The potential is a field in the mathematical sense, but physicists typically attribute it less 'reality' as an independent object than the do the "electric field". – dmckee Dec 1 '15 at 22:16