ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two concepts that are important in both science and everyday life – work and energy. Mechanically, work involves force and displacement, and the word work is used to describe quantitatively what is accomplished when a force acts on an object as it moves through a distance. If more than one force acts on an object, the work done by each can be calculated separately and added to find the net work. Work is something that is done on objects, whereas energy is something that objects have, which is the ability to do work. The work-energy theorem tells us that when work is done on an object, there is a change in or a transfer of energy. The idea of a conservative force allows us to extend the conservation of energy to the special case of mechanical energy, which greatly helps to better analyze many physical situations.
