AIMS Science Practice Test 2026 – Your Comprehensive All-in-One Exam Success Guide

Energy stored due to position or configuration is called potential energy. A stretched spring stores elastic potential energy because the work you did to pull it has built up energy that the spring will release as it tries to return to its rest length. This is different from kinetic energy, which is energy of motion, thermal energy, which relates to temperature and microscopic motion, or electrical energy, which comes from electric charges or fields. In a spring, the amount of stored energy increases with how far you stretch it, described by (1/2) k x^2.