Potential Energy in a Spring

When compressing an ideal spring, work is performed, and this work is stored in the spring in the form of what we call potential energy. Equation (B.6) above gives the quantitative formula for the potential energy stored in an ideal spring after it has been compressed meters from rest.

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About the Author: Julius Orion Smith III
Julius Smith's background is in electrical engineering (BS Rice 1975, PhD Stanford 1983). He is presently Professor of Music and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), teaching courses and pursuing research related to signal processing applied to music and audio systems. See http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ for details.