AnnaLouise295

AnnaLouise295 t1_j6wl13e wrote

It’s been too long since I sat in a physics (or thermodynamics) class to say with certainty, but my guess is that the answer has to do with “types” of energy and sounds something like “some of the thermal potential energy translated to gravitational potential energy”. They alluded to this in the above comments too with the notes on the energy required to move the ball - if the ball wasn’t there, then additional (thermal kinetic?) energy would have been released into the environment.

To say it another way - the gravitational potential energy isn’t the only energy in the system. The total energy of the system after freezing will still be less then before despite the increase in gravitational potential energy due to the decrease in thermal energy.

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