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Why is U the symbol for potential energy?

Best Answers

It is a convention. There are other forms to describe different Energy. I've seen it stated with a subscripts, PV, or V. read more

I don't think that there's a meaningful reason why U is the symbol for potential energy. It was just an unused and lonely symbol that couldn't be confused with E, P, or K. read more

The unit for energy in the International System of Units (SI) is the joule, which has the symbol J. The term potential energy was introduced by the 19th century Scottish engineer and physicist William Rankine, although it has links to Greek philosopher Aristotle's concept of potentiality. read more

Later, since V was being used elsewhere and to end the confusion, the symbol U was used instead, or ∆U = ∆Q + ∆W. After the establishment of this First Law of Thermodynamics, the symbol U and the concept of potential energy as well as the law of conservaton of energy made its way to classical mechanics. read more

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