- #1
xaenn
- 16
- 0
I am having a small misunderstanding regarding the concept of work, and I am hoping someone could clear things up for me.
I am reading Principles of Physics by Serway and Jewett, and it has an example of a person lifting a box vertically. It states that the work done by the person lifting the box is mgh, where h is the height the box is lifted, and correspondingly the work done by gravity is -mgh. Thus, the total work is 0.
From the perspective of work as energy transferred to the system, this does not make sense to me; the total work done is 0, yet we seem to have transferred energy into the system because we now have gravitational potential energy. If no work was done overall, then where has this additional energy come from?
Any responses are greatly appreciated.
Regards,
-Xaenn
I am reading Principles of Physics by Serway and Jewett, and it has an example of a person lifting a box vertically. It states that the work done by the person lifting the box is mgh, where h is the height the box is lifted, and correspondingly the work done by gravity is -mgh. Thus, the total work is 0.
From the perspective of work as energy transferred to the system, this does not make sense to me; the total work done is 0, yet we seem to have transferred energy into the system because we now have gravitational potential energy. If no work was done overall, then where has this additional energy come from?
Any responses are greatly appreciated.
Regards,
-Xaenn