Bow and Arrow Engery

This weekend while cleaning out my closet, I found my old bow and arrow! This brought back memories of the good old days when I would pretend to be an Indian and of the old Physical concept: energy. After stringing my bow and locating the proper arrows, I went out back to play with it. I realized that as I pulled the string back or did work on the system by applying a force to the bow string, I created potential energy for the system (PE). After releasing the string, the arrow accelerates and the bow’s elastic potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy of the arrow. This kinetic energy is equivalent to the potential energy I initially created and the total energy in the system is generally conserved. I would have never known that so many Physics’s concepts surrounded me and played such a large role in my youthful pastimes. I am now more observant of all the Physics around me, and eager to explain the underlying Physics of simple things, such as shooting a bow and arrow. Phun! Phun! Phun!