Question

What is absolute potential energy?

Answer 1

This is a definition-based question and if the definition of potential energy is clear then defining the term absolute potential energy becomes easy. There are two types of potential energy and if the difference between both is known, then that can also be used to define absolute potential energy.

Complete answer:
Absolute potential energy is defined as the amount of work that needs to be done on an object to bring an object to its current location from a point of infinite distance. It can also be defined as the energy needed for an object to reach escape velocity.
The equation for absolute potential energy is given as follows:
$\text{Potential Energy (W) = -}\dfrac{GMm}{r}$
where,
‘G’ is gravitational constant, whose value is predefined,
‘M’ and ‘m’ are mass of two bodies between which the potential difference is calculated, and
‘r’ is the distance between the two bodies.

Additional Information:
Potential energy is the energy held by an object because of its position relative to other objects, stresses within itself, its electric charge, or other factors that vary depending on the object for which the potential energy is calculated. Potential energy is associated with different forces that act on a body in a way that the total work done by these forces on the body depends only on the initial and final positions of the body in space. These forces, that are called conservative forces, can be represented at every point in space by vectors expressed as gradients of a certain scalar function called potential.

Note:
There are two types of potential energy, relative and absolute potential energy. Relative potential energy is widely used in every concept where potential energy is asked to be found. Absolute potential energy is rarely considered as this value doesn’t provide much information regarding the potential energy between the bodies.