View source for Work (disambiguation)

{{disambig}}

We use "work" in everyday speech and very often in a way that is reminiscent of the physicist's definition of work; that is, to proceed along a path through an activity, as "the politician worked her way through the crowd," "the professor worked the problem on the chalkboard," or "the host was working on his second martini when the guests arrived" (one hopes that the path in the latter case was a short one).

Like ''work,''  ''force'' and ''energy'' have well-defined meanings in physics, and they have their counterparts in everyday life. For example, ''force'' is that which produces or prevents motion, or imposes a change of velocity on something (a police force can do any of those, depending on the orders given). When a force acts to move an object in physics, we say that ''work'' is done on the object by the ''force'' (the police officers are not exactly taking it easy when they push back a crowd of fans trying to rush the latest pop singing star: they are doing ''work''). And ''energy'' in physics, as in everyday life, is the capacity of a physical system to perform work. When you are "too pooped to pop," you have no energy.

''Force'' is the agent of change, and ''work'' is a measure of the change.

In the physical world, work done on a body is accomplished not only by a displacement of the body as a whole from one place to another (like crowd control)  but also, for example, by compressing a gas, rotating a shaft, and even directing small particles along a [[magnetic field]].

{{r|Work (Physics)|In physics}}
{{r|Work (Sociology)|In sociology}}
{{r|Work (Economy)|In economy}}