Work- What is it really??

[upriver]

Work is defined as the transfer of energy. W = F x d

However......

Work is defined as "energy "transferred"". I maintain that that there are cases where energy is transferred even though there is no distance or Δd involved no matter the source of the energy.

The weightlifter(electric motor) lifts the weight - work is being done(in the physics sense) with the energy generated biologically then transferred to the weight.
He stops lifting the weight. Is work still being done(is energy still being "transferred"?)
Is energy still being transferred against the force of gravity because you stop moving upward whether its source is biological, electrical or petroleum?

In the case of the electric motor "mechanism" it has to expend just as much energy as the weight lifter holding the weight up against the force of gravity. Energy is neither created or destroyed.
That energy has to come from somewhere. Unless atoms are perpetual motion machines the energy is constantly drawn from a local energy source(the aether?).

This is important because this implies that work should be redefined to include energy transfers seen or unseen, subtle or macroscopic.
Under the new definition gravity would then do work on an orbiting body.
This is just correct bookkeeping.

Take the case of the skater pushing off against a bar. The energy is internal biological energy doing physics work against the earth. The skater is moving, doing physics work on herself with no displacement at the point of contact..
However, now if you go look in your collage text book this type of work is defined as "pseudo work".

And then there are the experiments with the electroscope where the standard explanation is the electric fields are static against the forces - energy "transferred".
It can be shown that the discharge of the electroscope can be arrested by the proper frequency of light. An unexpected development.

All it is is some fancy footwork to redefine work to fit all cases because work is incorrectly defined in the first place.
Energy transfer happens without distance and work should be redefined to include this case.

So then if energy transfers are occurring all the time now you are forced to rething your whole "energy" system to include inflows and out flows of energy at the microscopic level to explain why the electric motor mechanism can hold up the weight at the macroscopic level.


What do you think?

[mharratsc]

I think that it shows that there is still a lot of work for natural philosphers, despite Hawking's morbid pronouncement.

[Michael V]

upriver,

I am afraid you not uncovered any mystery here - this is pretty much all simple and basic mechanics.

The weightlifter (human or mechanical) is not a simple system. The human weightlifter is a collection of complex systems all doing work. Holding the weight against gravity requires less work than lifting the weight from floor to overhead. Do not let yourself be confused that a human weightlifter feels discomfort in standing with a heavy weight at arms length over head. The weight is being accelerated by gravity and so is the weightlifter, so even the simple act of standing requires work to be done. The lifted weight may be stationary, but gravity changes it from being a mass to being a weight, that is a force. The weightlifter is not locked solid by his skeletal system - his muscle fibres, tendons, ligaments, heart, lungs, etc must all do work in some manner to maintain the position of the weight. F x d is still operating, just not in a simplistic text book diagram sort of way.

The skater pushes the bar and the building and the planet and the skater's body (muscle fibres, tendons, ligaments etc.) does work to propel itself - there is nothing pseudo about it.

This is important because this implies that work should be redefined to include energy transfers seen or unseen, subtle or macroscopic.

Obviously, and it already is - what cannot be seen is far more important. Luckily evolution has equipped us with a mind far more powerful than our eyes, though unfortunately there is no user manual.

Under the new definition gravity would then do work on an orbiting body.

There is no new definition required - every movement you make requires that you do work against gravity.
Orbit is a particular and more complicated situation, so keep it simple and consider an object above a planet, say a grain of sand. There is a gravitational interaction between the planet and the grain of sand such that a force accelerates the grain toward the planet and a force of identical magnitude accelerates the planet toward the grain of sand. Gravity is indeed force for free - if you ever find yourself above a planet you may fall once for free.

So then if energy transfers are occurring all the time now you are forced to rethink your whole "energy" system to include inflows and out flows of energy at the microscopic level to explain why the electric motor mechanism can hold up the weight at the macroscopic level.

This too comes under the heading of bleeding obvious without any any need for a rethink - you should be thinking like this already.

where the standard explanation is the electric fields are static

Electric and magnetic fields travel at c, so hardly static.

It can be shown that the discharge of the electroscope can be arrested by the proper frequency of light. An unexpected development.

What is a discharge? What is a "proper" frequency? How does this "arresting" occur? What is unexpected?
Pardon me for being so bold, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there may be another misconception involved. If you are able to describe this "unexpected development" in more detail, I will endeavour to provide you an answer.

Also, you would do well to stop thinking in terms of energy as much as you are able. Instead try to think in terms of momentum and force; it makes it a little easier to remember that something real and physical is happening.

Michael

[Lloyd]

* Mathis has a paper, called THE KINETIC ENERGY EQUATION - another hole in your physics book, at http://milesmathis.com/kinetic.html, which might help clarify matters too.

[Michael V]

Lloyd,

I read that Mathis paper a ways back and came away dissatisfied.

E = 1/2mv2 and E = Fd (force times distance). Energy is Work and the SI unit of work is the joule (J). What if Einstein had suggested to the world the concept of mass and work equivalence. I suspect incredulity would of sat in its proper place.

Why 1/2 ?
Electrons and protons spin. It cannot be confirmed as to whether neutrons have some spin, but it is highly likely. The point is that even though an object may or may not be spinning, the mass carrying components of all objects spin. And, for a spinning object, at the instant of collision, only half the mass is travelling with the directional vector, so only half the mass the can transfer momentum and do work via collision and force.

Why v2 ?
F=ma. Acceleration, or specifically in this case it is deceleration, is dependent on initial velocity and the characteristics of collision (elastic or inelastic). Simply put, the maximum deceleration available is velocity squared.

So the maximum amount of work that an object might be able to do is given by 1/2mv2.

Without collision an object has no energy. Energy is just a calculation of the maximum amount of work an object could potentially do. Work can only be done via collision, so that a force can be applied and momentum transferred. The maximum amount of work that an object can do is entirely dependent on its mass and its velocity.

It would be a most advantageous change, for the sake of clarity and scientific progress, if the term "energy" were no longer used and instead replaced by in all circumstances by the term "work".

Michael

[upriver]

upriver,

I am afraid you not uncovered any mystery here - this is pretty much all simple and basic mechanics.

No mystery here just incorrect text book definitions. Even a group moderator was confused by the text book definition of work vs what is really going on.

The weightlifter (human or mechanical) is not a simple system. The human weightlifter is a collection of complex systems all doing work. Holding the weight against gravity requires less work than lifting the weight from floor to overhead. Do not let yourself be confused that a human weightlifter feels discomfort in standing with a heavy weight at arms length over head. The weight is being accelerated by gravity and so is the weightlifter, so even the simple act of standing requires work to be done. The lifted weight may be stationary, but gravity changes it from being a mass to being a weight, that is a force. The weightlifter is not locked solid by his skeletal system - his muscle fibres, tendons, ligaments, heart, lungs, etc must all do work in some manner to maintain the position of the weight. F x d is still operating, just not in a simplistic text book diagram sort of way.

I am not confused by the weightlifter doing anything. The weightlifter is generating energy which he is then applying to the weight(could be an electric motor or a gas engine). He applies energy whether the weight is moving or not. F * d = W implies that he is transferring no energy when the weight is not moving. This is incorrect.

Remove the d from the equation. Even completely immobile the weightlifter is transferring energy to the bar.

The skater pushes the bar and the building and the planet and the skater's body (muscle fibres, tendons, ligaments etc.) does work to propel itself - there is nothing pseudo about it.

This is important because this implies that work should be redefined to include energy transfers seen or unseen, subtle or macroscopic.

Obviously, and it already is - what cannot be seen is far more important. Luckily evolution has equipped us with a mind far more powerful than our eyes, though unfortunately there is no user manual.

The standard college text book definition describes work differently, which is my whole point. Text books describe the skater situation as pseudo-work because it a system of particles displacing the center of mass. Look it up..

Under the new definition gravity would then do work on an orbiting body.

There is no new definition required - every movement you make requires that you do work against gravity.
Orbit is a particular and more complicated situation, so keep it simple and consider an object above a planet, say a grain of sand. There is a gravitational interaction between the planet and the grain of sand such that a force accelerates the grain toward the planet and a force of identical magnitude accelerates the planet toward the grain of sand. Gravity is indeed force for free - if you ever find yourself above a planet you may fall once for free.

Totally missed the point. And therein lies the problem. Yes gravity is a force for free in one direction. The point I am making is that gravity transfers energy to a body in orbit around a larger body. It does work(transfers energy) in a situation where it is considered that gravity does no work.

The standard definition says gravity does no work(no energy transfer) on an orbiting body. I have been trying to get people to discuss this for a long time.... And there is the potential energy red herring involved.

So then if energy transfers are occurring all the time now you are forced to rethink your whole "energy" system to include inflows and out flows of energy at the microscopic level to explain why the electric motor mechanism can hold up the weight at the macroscopic level.

This too comes under the heading of bleeding obvious without any any need for a rethink - you should be thinking like this already.

If its so bleeding obvious then why isnt it taught that way in college text books?? Why do proponents of EU continue to use the Standard" definition??

I think like that all the time. But to get other people to grasp the concept of energy exchanges going on all the time, and that it is work whether there is distance involved is much more difficult.

It can be shown that the discharge of the electroscope can be arrested by the proper frequency of light. An unexpected development.

What is a discharge? What is a "proper" frequency? How does this "arresting" occur? What is unexpected?
Pardon me for being so bold, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there may be another misconception involved. If you are able to describe this "unexpected development" in more detail, I will endeavour to provide you an answer.

The electroscope paper is right here. I am going to have to get my copy and quote from it....

ABSTRACT. Basic experiments demonstrate that, for any set deflection angle of the electroscope leaf from the vertical under atmospheric conditions, the work performed against gravity by a 'charge gas' trapped in a conductor is neither predictable from current electrostatic or gravitational theory, nor equivalent to the electric energy calculated or measured oscilloscopically as being required to charge the said electroscope to the set and calibrated deflection. Furthermore, the results suggest that, quite independently from the mechanism of charge cancellation by recombination with ions of opposite polarity, electroscopic leakage rates depend upon the rate of regeneration of the kinetic energy of the trapped charges performing both electric and antigravitational work, as sourced upon hidden variable(s) in the local medium. We found therefore that, in order for the electric work of repulsion performed by charge against charge to be conserved, the work performed by charge against local gravity must be constantly supplied by regeneration of the kinetic energy of the trapped charges from the surrounding medium.
http://www.aetherometry.com/Electronic_ ... ractAS2-01

Also, you would do well to stop thinking in terms of energy as much as you are able. Instead try to think in terms of momentum and force; it makes it a little easier to remember that something real and physical is happening.

Michael

I try to think of in its most basic form- kinetic energy.

[upriver]

Lloyd,

Without collision an object has no energy. Energy is just a calculation of the maximum amount of work an object could potentially do. Work can only be done via collision, so that a force can be applied and momentum transferred. The maximum amount of work that an object can do is entirely dependent on its mass and its velocity.

It would be a most advantageous change, for the sake of clarity and scientific progress, if the term "energy" were no longer used and instead replaced by in all circumstances by the term "work".

Michael

I totally believe the opposite. Work does not cover all the cases. Energy does. Energy can be something on its own, like the aether is made of "energy" that does work when its transferred around......

So when you say collision you must mean interaction of "fields", right??
Like a electron accelerated in an electric field. You have a static field that does work on the electron by energy transfer, no physical matter contact at the point of energy transfer by an external agent.

[Michael V]

upriver,

So when you say collision you must mean interaction of "fields", right??

Yes, in all but extreme cases, and quite possibly even then, collisions between ponderable matter are mediated.

Energy can be something on its own, like the aether is made of "energy" that does work when its transferred around......

Oh dear. Energy as a substance is the essence of superstition. You seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere, physical reality is in the other direction. Gods, fairies and energy substance have no place in science, but as a science substitute they have all been successfully deployed at one time or another.

Michael

[D_Archer]

The formula for work only applies when there is mechanical movement.

Regards,
Daniel

[Michael V]

upriver,

I have been trying to get people to discuss this for a long time.

OK, I'm up for a bit more discussion.
First off though, I'm not particularly interested in discussing/correcting the inaccuracies or vagueries of any text book.

Even completely immobile the weightlifter is transferring energy to the bar.

Ok, let's make this a bit simpler, by removing the weightlifter and placing the "weight" (might be best just to refer to it as an object) back on the floor.
So now, presumably you are asserting that the floor is generating energy and transferring it to the object - is this correct?

Michael

[Michael V]

Daniel & upriver,

F x d, Force x Distance, is a description of work being done. Though we may not be able to immediately identify the physical motions occurring, such that we can assign values to F and d via measurement, it does not change the reality of the process.

E= 1/2mv2, is not a measure of the energy an object possesses. It is a calculation of the work that object is potentially capable of applying, upon collision. There is no work done, no energy possessed or transferred without collision - work is the process of applying force through distance - energy is simply a calculation of an object's potential to do work based on its mass and velocity. An object with mass and motion could legitimately be said to possess momentum. Energy is a vastly misunderstood and misused concept, in that it is ONLY a CALCULATION of an objects potential for work.

Michael

[Oracle_911]

Energy, work or whatever have meaning in systems,systems needs reference points (in most case us, planet Earth, Sun etc) otherwise our calculations became mambo-jumbo or mathematical voodoo.

[seasmith]

Energy is a vastly misunderstood and misused concept, in that it is ONLY a CALCULATION of an objects potential for work.

Michael
Michael V

...,,,,

Re: Work- What is it really??
by Oracle_911 » Sat Apr 14, 2012 12:11 pm

Energy, work or whatever have meaning in systems,systems needs reference points (in most case us, planet Earth, Sun etc) otherwise our calculations became mambo-jumbo or mathematical voo...

That said, it's really more of an estimate than a CALCUL; and then to take the more simple estimate of "potentials" between earth and sun, we are only just beginning to get a measure of the actual power .
Even electric dolts know what it means to have a lot of 'juice', so why quibble over textbook defines ?

[upriver]

upriver,

So when you say collision you must mean interaction of "fields", right??

Yes, in all but extreme cases, and quite possibly even then, collisions between ponderable matter are mediated.

Energy can be something on its own, like the aether is made of "energy" that does work when its transferred around......

Oh dear. Energy as a substance is the essence of superstition. You seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere, physical reality is in the other direction. Gods, fairies and energy substance have no place in science, but as a science substitute they have all been successfully deployed at one time or another.

Michael

Oh dear, the sky is falling because someone thought for them self...

Insults will win you friends. That is the biggest fallacy of science, that everything has to have mass.....

Take 2 waves. The phase difference between the 2 waves carries information and energy yet has no mass...

But dont take it from just me. Read about the work that Aetherometry has done on the subject of massless energy..
http://www.encyclopedianomadica.org/English/photon.php


Aetherometry
Since 1999, Dr. Paulo Correa and Alexandra Correa have proposed an immanentist-monist model of an imponderable dynamic Aether. This model defines the Aether as primary massfree energy (Dark Massfree Energy) in electric (ambipolar) and nonelectric (latent heat) forms. Massfree energy also exists in secondary (eg gravitons, kinetons) and tertiary (eg photons) forms affected by matter, and no theory of a dynamic Aether can be complete without accounting for these massfree energy forms, or without providing a model for the creation of mass-energy from Aether energy processes. Experimentally, the Correas have demonstrated the existence of Reich's orgone and dorgone energies, and quantitatively identified them as contiguous subspectra of ambipolar (electric) massfree energy. One of the fundamental characteristics of aetherometric theory is that light waves are not waves that transmit light, anymore than waves need to ride or require a medium. It is the medium or media that are already composed of waves, already undulatory; and what transmits the stimulus of light is not light or electromagnetic waves, but precisely the Tesla radiation (or Orgone), the ambipolar radiation through its longitudinal waves. Aetherometry clarifies therefore the relationship between transmission of the light stimulus and a local generation of all blackbody photons that was once suggested by Einstein himself. Light waves are local and solidary with the photon particles, in full agreement with classical Quantum-Mechanics, and without need to resort to relativistic transformations.
http://www.encyclopedianomadica.org/English/aether.php

[upriver]

upriver,

I have been trying to get people to discuss this for a long time.

OK, I'm up for a bit more discussion.
First off though, I'm not particularly interested in discussing/correcting the inaccuracies or vagueries of any text book.

Even completely immobile the weightlifter is transferring energy to the bar.

Ok, let's make this a bit simpler, by removing the weightlifter and placing the "weight" (might be best just to refer to it as an object) back on the floor.
So now, presumably you are asserting that the floor is generating energy and transferring it to the object - is this correct?

Michael

Sure. It requires energy to resist the weight sinking into the ground. To be specific, at the point of contact of the weight with the ground there is more energy required to hold the matter together to resist the weight sinking into the ground.

Lets keep our bookkeeping absolutely straight. Same amount of energy that the weight lifter expends holding the weight immobile is the amount of energy that is required to resist the weight sinking. This goes back to how does an electron stay in "orbit" around an atom when it should have radiated its energy away... Because it draws energy from the aether to maintain its form..
Can we measure it? We first have to figure out how to measure energy processes in atoms to a finer degree. Spectroscopy is not good enough because its quantized to the photon level...

Over a million years the weight will sink into the ground because matter is a process... Matter is not static, it will eventually decompose......