system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I'm substituting for high school physics this week and a student had a question I wasn't sure of. 

We are in the potential and kinetic energy chapter. I basically understand the inverse relationship between PE and KE as an object goes from being at rest to being in motion and back to rest again.


My student's question is if a ball is on the ground does it have PE in relation to the ground? I can kick the ball and give it KE and thus PE I suppose as well. Do I, the person kicking the ball, possess the potential energy that transfers to the ball? Also, what type of PE is this, elastic, gravitational or chemical energy? 

This is outside of my educational expertise but I don't want my students to suffer so thanks ahead of time for answering my question!
gpt
Potential energy is relative. You could say the ball has 0 joules on the ground, and when you set it on top of a table it has 100 joules. Or you could say it has 0 joules on the table and -100 joules on the ground. When doing physical calculations, what's important is the difference between two potential energy states, not the absolute value.

In terms of kicking the ball, you are converting chemical energy (which you got from your food and metabolism) into kinetic (plus heat) energy.