Work and Potential Energy
The scalar product of a force F and the velocity v of its point of application defines the power input to a system at an instant of time. Integration of this power over the trajectory of the point of application, C=x(t), defines the work input to the system by the force.
Read more about this topic: Work (physics)
Famous quotes containing the words work and, work, potential and/or energy:
“But it isn’t only the terror everywhere, and the fear of being conscious of it, that freezes people. It’s more than that. People know they are in a society dead or dying. They are refusing emotion because at the end of very emotion are property, money, power. They work and despise their work, and so freeze themselves. They love but know that it’s a half- love or a twisted love, and so they freeze themselves.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“Work is an essential part of being alive. Your work is your identity. It tells you who you are. It’s gotten so abstract. People don’t work for the sake of working. They’re working for a car, a new house, or a vacation. It’s not the work itself that’s important to them. There’s such a joy in doing work well.”
—Kay Stepkin, U.S. baker. As quoted in Working, book 8, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“If the Russians have gone too far in subjecting the child and his peer group to conformity to a single set of values imposed by the adult society, perhaps we have reached the point of diminishing returns in allowing excessive autonomy and in failing to utilize the constructive potential of the peer group in developing social responsibility and consideration for others.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“While the State becomes inflated and hypertrophied in order to obtain a firm enough grip upon individuals, but without succeeding, the latter, without mutual relationships, tumble over one another like so many liquid molecules, encountering no central energy to retain, fix and organize them.”
—Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)