This is an issue that has been bugging me for a while. I read somewhere that work is something of a convenient tool to describe energy transfer. If I am given any random object and there are many forces acting on it. Now, the object displaces only in one particular direction. So, is work done by one of the forces, say A, is just the dot product of that force and that one displacement? Isn’t there some other displacement to consider? The displacement caused by that force alone for instance?
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Yes, you are correct that work is a convenient tool to describe energy transfer. When a force acts on an object, it can transfer energy to the object by doing work on it.
If an object is displaced only in one particular direction, then the work done by a force acting on it can be calculated as the dot product of that force and the displacement of the object in that direction. This is because the dot product of two vectors gives the component of one vector that is parallel to the other vector, multiplied by the magnitude of the other vector. In this case, the force vector is multiplied by the component of the displacement vector that is parallel to the force vector, which gives the work done by that force.
However, if there are multiple forces acting on the object, then the total work done on the object will be the sum of the work done by each force. In addition, if there are multiple displacements caused by the different forces, then the total work done on the object will be the sum of the work done by each force along its own displacement vector.
Yes, you are correct that work is a convenient tool to describe energy transfer. When a force acts on an object, it can transfer energy to the object by doing work on it.
If an object is displaced only in one particular direction, then the work done by a force acting on it can be calculated as the dot product of that force and the displacement of the object in that direction. This is because the dot product of two vectors gives the component of one vector that is parallel to the other vector, multiplied by the magnitude of the other vector. In this case, the force vector is multiplied by the component of the displacement vector that is parallel to the force vector, which gives the work done by that force.
However, if there are multiple forces acting on the object, then the total work done on the object will be the sum of the work done by each force. In addition, if there are multiple displacements caused by the different forces, then the total work done on the object will be the sum of the work done by each force along its own displacement vector.
Yes, you are correct that work is a convenient tool to describe energy transfer. When a force acts on an object, it can transfer energy to the object by doing work on it.
If an object is displaced only in one particular direction, then the work done by a force acting on it can be calculated as the dot product of that force and the displacement of the object in that direction. This is because the dot product of two vectors gives the component of one vector that is parallel to the other vector, multiplied by the magnitude of the other vector. In this case, the force vector is multiplied by the component of the displacement vector that is parallel to the force vector, which gives the work done by that force.
However, if there are multiple forces acting on the object, then the total work done on the object will be the sum of the work done by each force. In addition, if there are multiple displacements caused by the different forces, then the total work done on the object will be the sum of the work done by each force along its own displacement vector.
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