Unit 3 of 8

Work, Energy, and Power

Work, Energy, and Power introduces energy as a scalar quantity that you'll later use to analyze systems without tracking every force at every instant. This unit covers kinetic energy (KE), work (W) as the mechanism that transfers energy in and out of a system, potential energy (U) stored due to position, conservation of energy across a system's initial and final states, and power as the rate of energy transfer. Conservation of energy serves as an intuitive workaround to many otherwise complex dynamics problems, proving to be a core problem-solving tool used throughout the rest of AP Physics 1, especially in rotational motion and oscillations.