this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
233 points (97.6% liked)

Science Memes

13346 readers
3585 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FRYD@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I just did a quick read on it on it. “Work” is the application of force over time in the direction the object is moving. Pushing a shopping cart for example is work, because you have to constantly apply force to it.

From what I’ve read, it seems that magnetic force doesn’t do work because it doesn’t apply force in the direction the object moves. Magnetic force only “deflects” or changes the direction of an object with an existing velocity. It’s only a deflection because the force applied is always perpendicular to the direction of the velocity.

To use the previous shopping cart example, picture a shopping cart that already has a forward velocity that passes a magnet. The magnet only applies a force to the side of the cart towards the magnet. This doesn’t push the cart itself, but changes the direction of its velocity towards the magnet.

[–] davidagain@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

But that's true of gravitational forces too, otherwise satellites wouldn't have constant speed. It's silly and misleading to say that magnetic forces do no work. If I turn an electromagnet on next to a spoon, the spoon will move and the magnetic force did some work.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Gravity does no work on satellites or objects that go in circular orbits. The force is there but it does no work and hence no energy change/transfer. Work is defined based on energy change by work-energy theorem

[–] davidagain@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

My point is that whether a force does work doesn't depend on what the force is. It makes no more sense to say that magnetic forces do no work than it does to say that gravitational forces do no work.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

But magnetic force does no work to a charged particle in any way. While gravitational force CAN do work and it does work on most cases(every non circular orbits or just a mass falling down). That's why magnetic force case is emphasised.

But on your take about magnets, its not the magnetic force that do the work but the associated electric force