

In simple words, work is not complete until and unless force is applied, which moves an object. Science defines work as a task done when a force acts upon a body that produces displacement in it. However, the scientific term work done is not related to the stationary task.

It can be either reading a book or sitting at your work-station to complete a job on the computer.

Most often, you use the term ‘work’ to express doing some task. In this particular article, we shall be learning about the following concepts. The faculties have compiled this important concept of physics in this article and try to make you understand them in a simple way. So what is that which makes them work at a different speed? All your questions will be answered by the end of this article. So, are work and power interrelated concepts? Are they interdependent on each other for their functioning? When you see two weightlifters, lifting the rings you will see both are performing the same work but their speed might differ. Work is energy being transferred.Every day of your life you move through systems of power and that these powers make you perform your work. The cheque is a means of transferring the cash value (the work done for example when a brick is raised). Pushing this analogy to its limits helps to show that whilst you can store real cash in the bank (the energy stored, for example, in a fuel + oxygen mixture), the cheque which passes between accounts is something different. It is also impossible in this transaction to know how much is stored in each account. We have to pay the banks for doing the job for us and so although my account falls by £1 yours may only gain 95p because you have to pay bank charges. It is an instruction to my bank to pay out £1 into your account. If I transfer a £1 cheque from my account to yours then my account goes down by £1 and yours will go up by £1. An analogy to use when teaching about energy transfersĬonsider two bank accounts. Steam engines enabled the output of many Cornish mines to quadruple. Watt went even further, developing the concept of rate of working, or power, with his steam engines described in ‘horsepower’. Manufacturers such as Boulton & Watt persuaded mine owners in Cornwall to buy a steam engine in place of their pit ponies, by comparing the amount of work each could do. Early on, a major use of steam engines was pumping water out of mines. But the abstract idea of an ‘engine’ really developed with steam engines.īy the 1820s the concept of ‘work’ as mechanical effect had been introduced into discussions about what are now called power technologies. Humans first domesticated animals to do useful work and later found other ways of exploiting energy from natural sources, such as falling water and wind. You can only calculate energy that is transferred. Nor do you know how much total energy is stored gravitationally. The transfer of energy is not 100% efficient and not all the energy transferred is represented by m g h. As well as transferring energy to the raised bricks, some of the energy in your muscles warms you up. If you lift a lot of bricks, you can get too hot. However, not all the energy available does a useful job. The useful thing which you get from fuels by burning them is a transfer of energy, so that a load can be raised, or an object accelerated. It takes account of the mass, the height raised and whether the kilogram is raised on the Earth or the Moon. You can show that the equation is a good summary of what happens. This second equation is illustrated by raising kilograms onto different height shelves. When energy is transferred from energy stored chemically in muscles to energy in a raised load, or to energy stored elastically in a stretched spring, the energy transferred is a measure of how much work has been done. You can calculate the energy transferred, or work done, by multiplying the force by the distance moved in the direction of the force.Įnergy transferred = work done = force x distance moved in the direction of the force Work is done whenever a force moves something over a distance.
