Work Example

In order for a force to do work on an object there must be motion which has a component in the direction of the force.

Data may be entered for any of the quantities below. When data entry is finished, click on the text in the illustration above for the quantity you wish to calculate. The data in the three fields will not be forced to be consistent until you click on the quantity to be calculated.

For the special case of a constant force, the work may be calculated by multiplying the distance times the component of force which acts in the direction of motion. For arbitrary force and distance vectors in space, this can be expressed as a scalar product of vectors.