Asked by julie

When a spring is compressed, the energy changes from kinetic to potential. Which best describes what is causing this change?

work

chemical energy

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
Work.

When the spring is compressed the forces involved do work (force × displacement) that transfers the object's kinetic energy into elastic potential energy stored in the spring. Chemical energy isn’t involved unless a chemical process is driving the compression. In an ideal, lossless case 1/2 mv^2 = 1/2 kx^2 (energy transferred by work).