Talk:Work (physics)

What about the other sort of work?

Any plans on how to disambiguate from the other sort of work - you know, the boring kind that we all have to do. –Tom Morris 08:29, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I made a mistake, I will move.--Paul Wormer 09:52, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Lead should be in everyday language understandable by the target reader.

It seems to me that the definition of work, along with examples, should be given and explored in the lead before the math is entered into the balance of the article. I took the liberty of demonstrating what I mean in the rewritten lead, as you can see. Not being a physicist, I used the examples that sprang to mind to explain the subject. If they fall off the mark, they can certainly be changed, but I hope the CZ community agrees that the introductory section, at least, should be written in plain English. Sincerely, your friend, George Garrigues 07:36, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I hope that more articles on "work" will appear (economic, sociological, etc.) together with a disambiguation page (like energy). It seems to me that George's lead would be more appropriate either in the disambig or in the sociologically oriented article. Note that the title (physics in parentheses) narrows down the present article considerably. To me the comparison of a force in physics with the "police force" [which BTW only works (no pun) in English] is a bit far fetched in the context of a physics article.--Paul Wormer 09:26, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

On second thought, I started a disambiguation page and moved George's lead-in to there, and reverted the present page. I reverted because George removed the (for a physicist essential) sentence about the dimension and units used for "work (physics)" and removed also the essential adjective "magnetic" (non-magnetic particles do not align along a magnetic field). --Paul Wormer 09:53, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Negative work isn't limited to physics; I've had several managers good at negative work. See Dilbert. Howard C. Berkowitz 02:10, 6 July 2009 (UTC)