# Work

In general, work is defined as a productive activity, which implies the implementation of rigorous and methodical, intellectual and/or manual knowledge, to produce and distribute goods and services in exchange for compensation, monetary or otherwise, an important topic of study for both social sciences (sociology, politics, law, economics) that the abstract and natural sciences (physics and geography). It is a useful service that is rendered to society and provides for the systematic granting to the public of one asset in exchange for another, in the form of not always monetary compensation.

In the modern world, work is carried out with the exercise of a trade or profession and has as its purpose the satisfaction of individual and collective needs. From a legal point of view, subordinate work is distinguished from self-employed and para-subordinate work with intermediate characteristics between the first two.

In physics, work (W) is the energy exchanged between two systems when displacement occurs through the action of a force, or a resultant of forces, which has a non-zero component in the direction of the displacement. The term “work“ was introduced in 1826 by the French mathematician Gaspard Gustave de Coriolis, and derives from the Latin labor with the meaning of fatigue.

Therefore, the overall work exerted on a body is equal to the variation of its kinetic energy. In the presence, however, of a conservative force field, that is in the absence of dissipative effects, the work done is equal to the variation of potential energy between the ends of the path. The work done by a force is zero if the displacement is zero or if it has no components along the direction of the displacement. The work $$W$$ done by a constant force of magnitude $$F$$ on a point that moves a displacement $$s$$ in a straight line in the direction of the force is the product:

W = F · s