When you hear the word work, it might mean your job or the expanding effort that goes into getting a particular project done. It might also conjure up images of manual labor, like scrubbing floors or hauling heavy loads. Or you might think of more abstract ideas, like the energy you put into raising a child or starting a business.
If you’re a science student, or even if you’re not, you’ve likely been taught that energy is the ability to do work. That’s a pretty useful concept, since it helps explain how a lot of the things that happen around us work, whether it’s pushing a car across the road or picking up a book from your desk.
However, the scientific definition of work is slightly different than its everyday meaning. The scientific definition is that for work to be done, there needs to be both a force and a displacement. In its simplest form, for a constant force aligned with the direction of motion, work equals the product of the force strength and the distance traveled.
To do work, an object must be displaced in some way, and the relative directions of the force and displacement determine whether the work is positive, negative, or zero. The SI unit for work is the joule, which is a measure of the amount of energy transferred from one place to another or one form to another.
So if you push something against the wall, and you can feel the force building up in your arms, that’s the kind of work that is being done. But what about when you hold a book without moving it? Surely that isn’t working? Well, if you do this for any length of time, your muscles will get tired. That’s because the forces that are acting on your body are transferring energy to them.
So the next time someone tells you that work from home isn’t real work, remind them of all the money that they’re saving on commuting expenses, overpriced coffee, and uncomfortable clothes. Then tell them about how they can invest that saved money into a retirement account or buy experiences that will help them thrive. And if they’re lucky, you might convince them that the unseen portion of their job — imagining solutions to nonroutine problems and seeking fresh opportunities — is a big part of what work should actually be. And then, perhaps they’ll stop complaining about their commute or that they don’t have enough time for their side business.
