Question

A student pushes hard enough on a wall that she breaks a sweat. The wall, however, does not move (you can neglect the tiny amount it compresses). Does the student do any work on the wall? Answer using: 1. your intuition.

Answer 1

Answer: based on my intuition, the student didn't do any work.

Explanation:

For work to be done, the force exerted on an object must cover a distance, hence

Work done= Force x displacement. Therefore work is said to be done when there is displacement.

Although the student pushes hard enough on a wall that she breaks a sweat, no work was done since the wall didn't move through a distance.

What actually happens when pushing against a wall is that the wall pushes back on you with a force equal in strength to the force you exerted and expending energy in the process is shown through sweating.

Answer 2

Answer: No, the student does not do any work on the wall.

Explanation: The work is defined as the movement of an object done/caused by a force.

And it can be calculated as:

W = F*d

where W is work, F is force and d is the displacement of the object

In this case, the student is applying force on the wall, so we have the first part, but we also know that the wall does not move, so in this case, d = 0, which would imply that the work applied to the wall must be equal to zero

(because W = F*0 = 0)

So the answer is no, the student does not do any work on the wall.