Question

A baby carriage is sitting at the top of a hill that is 36 m high. The carriage with the baby weights 15 N. What type of energy does the carriage have? Calculate the energy.

Answer 1

The carriage has potential energy since the carriage has the potential to fall and convert that potential energy into kinetic energy.

The potential energy in this case is 15*36 = 540 joules.

The potential energy formula is

PE = m*g*h

where mg is the weight of the object, so you can express it like this

PE = w*h

So that's why we multiply the weight with the height to get the potential energy.