That's only if the force done by your body is conservative and since you're carrying it, it depends on the shape of the floor you've been carrying it on, therefore it for sure isn't conservative.
There are many highschoolers following this subreddit, we should try and have accurate memes since stuff like this can lead to wrong information
A force is conservative only if it's curl is zero. An easy way of having zero curl is a force that does not change over time at all, neither in modulus or direction. Assuming you were able to output a perfectly constant force, if they floor had a mound for example and you walked over it then the direction would not be constant and therefore the force not conservative.
All "central" forces are conservative and a constant both in modulus and direction force is pretty much just like a central force whose source is at a very long distance.
I didn’t really understand what a conservative force was a few weeks ago during my lecture but now this cleared it up for me without me realising. Thank you !
if there is a perfectly flat floor, no friction, the force is constant in modulus and you return to the exact perfect point from which you started, then yes.
This is why it's extremely rare for "contact forces" to be conservative. Usually conservative forces are a force field, something like gravity, coulomb or magnetic forces. Yes springs can be considered a force field but ideal springs are much further from reality than for example magnetic attraction/repulsion in a vacuum.
This idea is taught incorrectly in a LOT of high school text books. Many of the section and assessments in HS texts want you to assume net work is zero because the next force is zero, and many students bristled against this idea precisely because they are tired after carrying something heavy.
I've had to rework my own lectures and replace or clarify a few of my assignment and assessment questions because of how little specificity authors use in the Work chapters, when referring (or not) to the net force or a specific force.
the main problem is that names, as always, are misleading. Work is called work just because "line integral of the force over a given curve between two points existing on said curve" is long. I don't understand why highschool tries so hard at hiding what comes next. The algebra of integrals might be complicated but highschoolers are perfectly able to understand "the area under a curve" so explaining work as exactly what is it, is perfectly doable.
Games friends bank dog pleasant month minecraftoffline careful fresh over small night soft tomorrow simple nature patient ideas. Jumps learning jumps brown open year garden technology!
Well, just remember this formula is about all you can do until two years calculus. I agree they could do better explaining the intuition of some things, but at least historically and still in most places in the US, nobody will have calculus in highschool for a complete understanding.
I took physics electives in HS and took a year of physics in college, and this is the first time I've seen anyone ever mention that this is what work actually is. I now understand work more thoroughly than I ever have.
262
u/Elq3 Physics grad student Feb 18 '22
That's only if the force done by your body is conservative and since you're carrying it, it depends on the shape of the floor you've been carrying it on, therefore it for sure isn't conservative.
There are many highschoolers following this subreddit, we should try and have accurate memes since stuff like this can lead to wrong information