A mother carries her baby from room to room -- Is this scientific work?

[kathrynisconfused]

Homework Statement

Which of the following scenarios involves scientific work and why?
1. A mother carries her baby from room to room. 2. A father pushes a baby in a baby carriage. 3. A woman carries a 20 kg to her car. 4. A bowler scores a strike on the first frame.

Relevant Equations

W=FD

I am thinking no for the first question because the mother is not applying a horizontal force to cause the baby to move horizontally. Maybe yes for #2?
Please help

 

[PeroK]

Homework Statement:: Which of the following scenarios involves scientific work and why?
1. A mother carries her baby from room to room. 2. A father pushes a baby in a baby carriage. 3. A woman carries a 20 kg to her car. 4. A bowler scores a strike on the first frame.
Relevant Equations:: W=FD

I am thinking no for the first question because the mother is not applying a horizontal force to cause the baby to move horizontally. Maybe yes for #2?
Please help

I can safely say I've never seen a question like this before! What is "scientific work"? That's the key question here. Then, which of the scenarios does it apply to?

 

[FactChecker]

Homework Statement:: Which of the following scenarios involves scientific work and why?
1. A mother carries her baby from room to room. 2. A father pushes a baby in a baby carriage. 3. A woman carries a 20 kg to her car. 4. A bowler scores a strike on the first frame.
Relevant Equations:: W=FD

I am thinking no for the first question because the mother is not applying a horizontal force to cause the baby to move horizontally.

But she is not just floating in space over there. It takes some force to move. That being said, I think that your answer is what they want.

Maybe yes for #2?

Rolling a baby carriage should be fairly easy, but there may be friction. If he is riding on a rolling baby carriage, that would be less work.
I think that you are correctly looking at the right things, but the examples are hard to evaluate. You are correct that you want to look at the direction that the force is applied and how much motion distance is in that direction. Even the motion is only partly in that direction, then you should look at the component of motion in the direction of the force.

 

[hutchphd]

What does "involves" mean? This is one of those "define what the question means and then answer it" situations. For instance the bowler does work on the ball...etc etc. Maybe (?) not a bad discussion question...hopefully not a "test" question

 

[PeroK]

Yes, it's a dreadful question, because scientific questions must involved all the relevant information. Not just describe a snippet of everyday life with no clear assumptions about the prevailing conditions.

 

[haruspex]

... in particular, it is unclear whether the motions described are supposed to include the initial and final accelerations. True, the work done in the initial acceleration is in principle recoverable, but not in an ergonomic context. Going from room to room will involve stopping and starting.
If the student is not supposed to consider that then the question would be better worded as "oversimplified scientific work". Otherwise, the message is that science cannot deal with the real world.