Does work transfer energy as the result of motion

1 answer

Not necessarily. Although work in high school is usually defined as force times displacement in the direction of the force, this is not the most general definition.

Work, by definition, is the change in energy of a system due to a change in an external variable. If that external variable has something to do with changing distances then the work can be interpreted as due to motion.

An example is changing the volume of a gas or changing the position of an object in the gravitational field on the Earth.

In physics we define the "generalized" force as minus the derivative of the energy w.r.t. the external variable. So, unlike taught in high school, force is a derived concept and energy and work are more fundamental.

An example of doing work that does not involve any motion or displacement is
by changing the external magnetic field of a system with some magnetic susceptibility.

In this case the external magnetic field is the external variable, analogous to position of volume. The magnetization is the conjugate force, analogous to pressure or force.
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