Monday, October 26, 2015

kinematics - Why does work equal force times distance?



My book says:



Energy is the capacity to do work and work is the product of net force and the 1-dimensional distance it made a body travel while constantly affecting it.



This seems quite unmotivated to me.


Why does work equal $F \cdot d$ ?


Where does the distance part come from?



I always thought of time as the one thing we can only measure (not affect) so it justifies why we may measure other things in relation to time. But we have a much greater control over distance (since it's just a term for a physical dimension we can more or less influence as opposed to time).


Edit: That^ doesn't make much sense, but it's been graciously addressed in some of the answers.


Level: High-school Physics.




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