Meaning of work

Meaning of work

When you rub your hands against each other the temperature of the hands increases. You have done some work on your hands by rubbing. The temperature of the hands increases due to this work. Now if you place your hands on the chin, the temperature of the chin increases. This is because the hands are at higher temperature than the chin. In the above example, the temperature of hands is increased due to work and temperature of the chin is increased due to heat transfer from the hands to the chin. It is shown in the Figure 8.1.

By doing work on the system, the temperature in the system will increase and sometimes may not. 

Like heat, work is also not a quantity and through the work energy is transferred to the system . So we cannot use the word ‘the object contains more work’ or ‘less work’.

Either the system can transfer energy to the surrounding by doing work on surrounding or the surrounding may transfer energy to the system by doing work on the system. For the transfer of energy from one body to another body through the process of work, they need not be at different temperatures.