Work is an activity requiring effort or exertion that changes the energy state of an object or system. It is an important part of our everyday lives and many things that we do, such as lifting a heavy weight or pushing a car, can be described as work. However, certain activities we do in everyday circumstances do not qualify as work in the scientific sense.
In physics, the term work refers to the transfer of energy from one object to another, and it is defined as the product of the force exerted on an object and the displacement of that object. It is also defined as the change in gravitational potential energy, which is the amount of energy that a body has because of its position and mass. Work can be done on a body by any force, and the magnitude of this work is proportional to the strength of the force and the direction in which the force acts. The SI unit for work is the joule (J).
The direction of the force must be perpendicular to the displacement in order for an object to experience positive work. For example, when a body falls freely under gravity’s influence, the force of the gravity exerted on the body is parallel to the direction of motion and therefore does positive work. The opposite is true for a force acting on an object that is not perpendicular to the direction of motion, such as friction, which causes an item to lose energy.
When we think of work in our everyday lives, it is often related to the effort we have to put into an activity, and it can sometimes seem hard or demanding. The scientific definition of work, however, has a much narrower focus than this. For an activity to be considered work, it must have a direct effect on the transfer of energy in some way, and this energy must either be added or taken away from an object.
If a force is exerted on an object for a long time and the distance of the object does not change, no work has been done. If, on the other hand, a force is exerted for a short period of time and the distance of the object changes, then work has been done.
A good way to remember how to calculate the work of a force on a body is to use the following formula: W = F
Moreover, the magnitude of work that is done on an object depends on the size and direction of the force and the amount by which the body is displaced. The same applies for a rotational trajectory, where the integral can be computed along the angular trajectory and is path dependent.