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The ancient Greek understanding of physics was limited to the statics of simple machines (the balance of forces), and did not include dynamics or the concept of work. During the Renaissance the dynamics of the Mechanical Powers, as the simple machines were called, began to be studied from the standpoint of how far they could lift a load, in addition to the force they could apply, leading ...
Thermodynamic work is one of the principal kinds of process by which a thermodynamic system can interact with and transfer energy to its surroundings. This results in externally measurable macroscopic forces on the system's surroundings, which can cause mechanical work, to lift a weight, for example, [1] or cause changes in electromagnetic, [2] [3] [4] or gravitational [5] variables.
The work can be done, for example, by electrochemical devices (electrochemical cells) or different metals junctions [clarification needed] generating an electromotive force. Electric field work is formally equivalent to work by other force fields in physics, [1] and the formalism for electrical work is identical to that of mechanical work.
A reversible work source is a system which, when it does work, or has work done to it, does not change its entropy. It is therefore not a heat engine and does not suffer dissipation due to friction or heat exchanges. A simple example would be a frictionless spring, or a weight on a pulley in a gravitational field.
That axiom stated that the internal energy of a phase in equilibrium is a function of state, that the sum of the internal energies of the phases is the total internal energy of the system, and that the value of the total internal energy of the system is changed by the amount of work done adiabatically on it, considering work as a form of energy.
In physics, a conservative force is a force with the property that the total work done by the force in moving a particle between two points is independent of the path taken. [1] Equivalently, if a particle travels in a closed loop, the total work done (the sum of the force acting along the path multiplied by the displacement ) by a conservative ...
This is a list of notable experiments in physics. The list includes only experiments with Wikipedia articles. The list includes only experiments with Wikipedia articles. For hypothetical experiments, see thought experiment .
Virtual work is the total work done by the applied forces and the inertial forces of a mechanical system as it moves through a set of virtual displacements. When considering forces applied to a body in static equilibrium, the principle of least action requires the virtual work of these forces to be zero.