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Forums
Physics
Special and General Relativity
Total Energy of Particle in Potential: SR Explanation
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[QUOTE="Jonathan Scott, post: 5510660, member: 54889"] Electric potential energy is not part of the energy of the particle and does not contribute to its inertia. It is part of the energy of the system which includes the particle and the field, and the standard explanation is that it resides in the field, with an energy density proportional to the square of the field. Within the squared field expression, there are terms made up of the scalar product of the field components due to each pair of charged particles, and when each scalar product term is integrated over all space the result is equal to the potential energy between that pair of particles. In contrast, gravitational potential energy (which is negative relative to the local rest mass) is part of the energy of the particle and is assumed to contribute its inertia, but to get the usual conservation laws to work (at least for a weak field approximation) there also has to be positive energy in the field which compensates for the double effect of each particle having the whole potential energy. [/QUOTE]
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Physics
Special and General Relativity
Total Energy of Particle in Potential: SR Explanation
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