Thanks for another helpful post. Must admit I don’t understand the point about why the horizontal force produced by a gust of wind does no work. During the period of the wind blowing won’t the object experience a component displacement in the direction of the wind force and as a consequence the object will not be travelling in a purely vertical direction under the influence of gravity alone. Whist the wind is blowing won’t the NET force be in a direction which is the same direction as the infinitely small displacement produced by the two components ie gravity plus wind ? What am I missing ? Thanks again
Hi, thanks for your comment. I read the relevant parts over again and made some adjustments. I should have used as an example clashing winds of equal magnitude and opposing direction. In that case, the winds both cause no displacement and exert a net force of zero and therefore perform no work.
I gave a different example in which gravity exerts a force on a horizontally moving object. In that case, gravity performs no work because it is orthogonal to the object's direction of displacement.
Thanks for another helpful post. Must admit I don’t understand the point about why the horizontal force produced by a gust of wind does no work. During the period of the wind blowing won’t the object experience a component displacement in the direction of the wind force and as a consequence the object will not be travelling in a purely vertical direction under the influence of gravity alone. Whist the wind is blowing won’t the NET force be in a direction which is the same direction as the infinitely small displacement produced by the two components ie gravity plus wind ? What am I missing ? Thanks again
Hi, thanks for your comment. I read the relevant parts over again and made some adjustments. I should have used as an example clashing winds of equal magnitude and opposing direction. In that case, the winds both cause no displacement and exert a net force of zero and therefore perform no work.
I gave a different example in which gravity exerts a force on a horizontally moving object. In that case, gravity performs no work because it is orthogonal to the object's direction of displacement.