# When Electric Field is 0 is potential also 0?

Alex Hughes
So here is how my book defined electric potential. If you take a charge, it will have a corresponding electric field associated with it. If you put another charge in that electric field, an electrostatic force will act on it and give it kinetic energy. This kinetic energy can't come from thin air, therefore it has to come from the electric potential energy stored in the charges. To account for electric potential energy, an electric potential is defined. The electric potential is simply the electric potential energy per charge. This made sense to me until I got to a part about conductors. They said the electric potential is constant all throughout the conductor, but inside the conductor the electric field is 0. This doesn't make sense to me. Don't you need an electric field in order for a force to act on a charge which would then give it an electric potential. Without any electric field, how could you possibly have an electric potential? I looked online and everybody said zero electric field just means that the CHANGE in potential will be 0, and possibly could mean the potential is 0 but its not certain. Can somebody please explain to me why this is. I'm really confused. Thanks.