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The joule (/ dʒ uː l / JOOL, or / dʒ aʊ l / JOWL; symbol: J) is the unit of energy in the International System of Units (SI). [1] It is equal to the amount of work done when a force of one newton displaces a mass through a distance of one metre in the direction of that force.
The ancient Greek understanding of physics was limited to the statics of simple machines (the balance of forces), and did not include dynamics or the concept of work. During the Renaissance the dynamics of the Mechanical Powers, as the simple machines were called, began to be studied from the standpoint of how far they could lift a load, in addition to the force they could apply, leading ...
Energy is defined via work, so the SI unit of energy is the same as the unit of work – the joule (J), named in honour of James Prescott Joule [1] and his experiments on the mechanical equivalent of heat. In slightly more fundamental terms, 1 joule is equal to 1 newton metre and, in terms of SI base units
Thus, one joule is one watt-second, and 3600 joules equal one watt-hour. The CGS energy unit is the erg and the imperial and US customary unit is the foot pound . Other energy units such as the electronvolt , food calorie or thermodynamic kcal (based on the temperature change of water in a heating process), and BTU are used in specific areas of ...
Power is the rate with respect to time at which work is done; it is the time derivative of work: =, where P is power, W is work, and t is time. We will now show that the mechanical power generated by a force F on a body moving at the velocity v can be expressed as the product: P = d W d t = F ⋅ v {\displaystyle P={\frac {dW}{dt}}=\mathbf {F ...
Thermodynamic work is one of the principal kinds of process by which a thermodynamic system can interact with and transfer energy to its surroundings. This results in externally measurable macroscopic forces on the system's surroundings, which can cause mechanical work, to lift a weight, for example, [1] or cause changes in electromagnetic, [2] [3] [4] or gravitational [5] variables.
The first law of thermodynamics is a formulation of the law of conservation of energy in the context of thermodynamic processes.The law distinguishes two principal forms of energy transfer, heat and thermodynamic work, that modify a thermodynamic system containing a constant amount of matter.
In particular Joule had experimented on the amount of mechanical work generated by friction needed to raise the temperature of a pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit and found a consistent value of 778.24 foot pound force (4.1550 J·cal −1). Joule contended that motion and heat were mutually interchangeable and that, in every case, a given ...