What is potential energy?

Potential energy is defined as the stored energy of an object that results from its position or state. This form of energy is associated with the arrangement of particles and the forces acting upon an object. For instance, when an object is elevated above the ground, it has gravitational potential energy due to its position in a gravitational field. If the object falls, this stored energy can be converted into kinetic energy, which is the energy of motion.

While the other options describe different forms of energy—energy of motion refers to kinetic energy, energy related to temperature change pertains to thermal energy, and energy produced from chemical reactions is related to chemical energy—they do not accurately define potential energy. Each of these concepts plays a significant role in physics and chemistry but does not capture the essence of potential energy, which is fundamentally about the energy that is stored based on an object's position or state rather than its motion or thermal state.