Video Transcript
How much work is done by a 12-newton force acting on an object and moving at a distance of 1.5 meters?
Okay, so in this question, we have some object that’s acted on by a force. Let’s suppose that this orange square here is the object. And let’s further suppose that the force acting on this object acts to the right like this. We are told that this force has a magnitude of 12 newtons. Let’s label it as 𝐹. The other thing that we’re told is that this causes the object to move a distance of 1.5 meters. So let’s draw our object over here, a distance of 1.5 meters from where it started, which we’ve labeled as 𝑑.
We’re being asked to find how much work is done by the force when it moves this object. We can recall that the work done on an object by a force is equal to the magnitude of the force multiplied by the distance that it causes the object to move. If we label the work done as 𝑊, then for a force 𝐹 which causes the object to move a distance of 𝑑, then we can write this equation in terms of symbols as 𝑊 is equal to 𝐹 multiplied by 𝑑. All that we need to do now is to take our values for the force 𝐹 and the distance 𝑑 and sub them into this equation so that we can calculate the work done 𝑊. When we do this, we find that 𝑊 is equal to 12 newtons, that’s our value for 𝐹, multiplied by 1.5 meters, our value for 𝑑.
For a force in units of newtons, the SI base unit for force, and a distance in units of meters, the SI base unit for distance, we’ll get our work done in its own SI base unit, which is the joule. Evaluating the expression gives a result of 18 joules. And so our answer to the question is that the amount of work done by the force is equal to 18 joules.
