Who invented work physics

It was applied by physicians until the s to the notion of a supposed irritant substance conveyed by nerves that stimulated action. Aspects of the concept of work done appear as early as 60AD in the writings of Hero of Alexandria. Hero reported that if a weight were raised with a pulley system by the exertion of a force less than the weight being lifted, the rope must be pulled with a speed greater than the speed with which the weight rises.

Galileo, without explicitly discussing the concept of conservation of energy , hinted at an understanding that certain kinds of machines were impossible:.

God… in the beginning created matter along with motion and rest, and now, through His ordinary concourse alone, conserves just as much motion and rest in the whole of it [i. In his Principia Philosophiae , Descartes proposed a number of flawed laws of collisions that used the concept of quantity of motion , calculated as the product of mass and undirected speed. Building on Descartes work, in , John Wallis, Christopher Wren and Christiaan Huygens presented work to the Royal Society in which they argued that the direction of velocity was a significant aspect of the quantity of motion.

Leibniz used the law of falling bodies to argue that the object with mass m reaches double the velocity of the 4m object, because it falls four times the distance. Moreover, Leibniz argued that the quantity mass multiplied by velocity squared was conserved.

A disagreement between followers of Leibniz and Descartes over the nature of vis viva occupied philosophers for over 50 years. It is argued that Newton understood, and used mathematically, the concepts of the kinetic and potential energy in the context of objects in orbit, without having explicit terminology for the concepts. She proposed a thought experiment in which a spring projects a ball forwards on the deck of a boat.

She pointed out that Jurin and others had neglected the recoiling motion of the boat. She had developed a close personal and professional relationship with Voltaire with whom she collaborated on scientific research.

Neither won. She encountered significant prejudice throughout her life due to her gender. The German philosopher Kant wrote:. Judge me for my own merits, or lack of them, but do not look upon me as a mere appendage to this great general or that renowned scholar, this star that shines at the court of France or that famed author. I am in my own right a whole person, responsible to myself alone for all that I am, all that I say, all that I do… I confess that I am inferior to no one.

She increased her work schedule reporting:. The concept of work in physics is much more narrowly defined than the common use of the word. Work is done on an object when an applied force moves it through a distance. In our everyday language, work is related to expenditure of muscular effort, but this is not the case in the language of physics. A person that holds a heavy object does no physical work because the force is not moving the object through a distance.

Work, according to the physics definition, is being accomplished while the heavy object is being lifted but not while the object is stationary.

Another example of the absence of work is a mass on the end of a string rotating in a horizontal circle on a frictionless surface. The centripetal force is directed toward the center of the circle and, therefore, is not moving the object through a distance; that is, the force is not in the direction of motion of the object. However, work was done to set the mass in motion.

Work is a scalar. If work is done by a varying force, the above equation cannot be used. The work performed on the object by each force is the area between the curve and the x axis.

The total work done is the total area between the curve and the x axis. For example, in this case, the work done by the three successive forces is shown in Figure 1. Acting force changing with position. Kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is the energy of an object in motion. The expression for kinetic energy can be derived from the definition for work and from kinematic relationships.

Consider a force applied parallel to the surface that moves an object with constant acceleration. The right side of the last equation yields the definition for kinetic energy: K. The above derivation shows that the net work is equal to the change in kinetic energy. Potential energy.

Potential energy, also referred to as stored energy, is the ability of a system to do work due to its position or internal structure. Examples are energy stored in a pile driver at the top of its path or energy stored in a coiled spring.

Potential energy is measured in units of joules. Follow-up on this answer. Learn more physics! Related Questions. Still Curious?

That's a very good and important historical question.