Are work and moment the same thing? They both have the same units

[Femme_physics]

Moment is Newtons per meter, and work is Newtons per meter. I'm confused as to how to relate them. Are they essentially the same thing?

 

[uart]

Moment is Newtons per meter, and work is Newtons per meter. I'm confused as to how to relate them. Are they essentially the same thing?

Correction : Moment is Newtons-meters, and work is Newtons-meters.

No they're not the same. For work the force has to be in the same direction (vector dot product) as relevant distance (that is the distance traveled), whereas for torque the force has to be perpendicular (vector cross product) to the relevant distance (which is the lever length).

 

[Femme_physics]

Ah I see, thanks uart :)

 

[Femme_physics]

I just thought of something.

If I push on something with 400 NEwtons, and it doesn't move - does work = 0? Or 400 N/m?

Because if I apply a moment on something and it doesn't rotate, I know that the moment is still worth its amount regardless of whether there was or wasn't rotational movement.

 

[JaredJames]

Work is force x distance. So there is no work done if the object doesn't move.

N/m is a unit of pressure. Work units is Nm.

 

[Femme_physics]

Ah, sorry for repeatedly confusing the units...and thanks for clarifying my suspicion, jarednjames.

 

[Oldfart]

N/m is a unit of pressure. .

Huh? Not N/m^2?

 

[JaredJames]

Huh? Not N/m^2?

Bugger, good catch!

 

[Pinu7]

Dimensionally, torque (moment) has the same units as energy. However, that alone does not give you permission to add these totally different quantities.