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Contemplating Work


Mary_E27

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As we are to begin a new unit in Physics as we return from Christmas break, we were assigned a video called Work. Just hearing it made me wonder if it has something to do with what parents and most students call work. I was incorrect with my assumption when I watched the video. As it turns out, when you do work on something, you are moving it. In order to calculate work, you must use the equation W=Fd, where W is work, F is the force applied, and d is the displacement of the objects. But as the video continued, I looked at the examples and thought, almost anything that one does in work is actually doing work on something.

If you worked at a cubicle and you send emails to coworkers about meetings and Sandra's surprise retirement party, you are doing work on the keyboard. If you move the object, you are doing work on it. It may be very small like typing certain keys, but it is work. Let's say you wheel over to the next cubicle because Ronny says there's something really cool out the window, and continues to tell you about his crazy weekend in his mother's basement. You are doing work on the chair because you are pushing yourself on it and moving it across the floor. The chair is displaced, and there is a force applied, but at a downward angle, therefore, you would use the equation W=Fdcosx.

Cubicle workers are not the only work people to do work on objects. Think about construction workers. They lift objects, throw them, move objects to the garbage, and built other things in its place. All of which are doing work on the objects, but I'm sure none of them think about the work they are doing besides the type where they get paid, and not in knowledge of physics.

On the higher end of the job scale is surgeons. They work crazy hours and do work delicately on their patients. Let's say Dr Seuss is a heart surgeon and has to perform a heart transplant. He has to do work on the patient when cutting their skin open, cutting away some of their ribs, and finally, replacing an unhealthy heart with a fully functional one.

Every job does work, I'm only wondering which one had the name first.

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