What is a Joule? An Explanation

This video goes over an explanation of the metric unit for work and energy which is the joule. The joule is the derived unit in the metric system for work and energy. Work is done on an object when a force is applied to an object through a distance.
One joule of work is done on an object when a force of one newton is applied over a distance of one meter. The joule is named after James Prescott Joule who lived from 1818 until 1889. He worked on a principle know as the mechanical equivalent of heat which states that whenever a mechanical force is expended, an exact equivalent of heat is always obtained.
Subsequent videos will cover the newton and the watt.. The newton is the derived unit in the metric system for force. A force is a push or a pull. One newton is equal to the force that would give a one kilogram mass an acceleration of one meter per second squared. The watt is the metric unit for power. Power describes how fast work is done. One watt of power is exerted when one joule of work is done in one second.
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[@mrmcafeeboat2887]

I love you are explanation I have doubts around 4 years about joule I watch your video my doubt was clear in excellent way thank u for making this video and I love all you are video

[@stepbystepscience]

You are most welcome.

[@WebcrawlerGal]

Amen

[@markwilliams1526]

Well explained

[@gabusprimus1243]

OMG, i just got all the knowledge of jouls in a 9 minute video, thats insane, u teach sooo well!

[@stepbystepscience]

Happy to hear that! Thanks for your comment.

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[@stepbystepscience]

Glad to be of help, best wishes to you.

[@trevorpope1913]

Thank you, this clear explanation makes the understanding easy.

[@stepbystepscience]

Great to hear, thanks for your comment!

[@mariansinclair9036]

Now, I have a clue. I am a layperson to anything science but, at the time of watching this video, I understood what a J/joule was. Part of this info will stick with this 70 something woman. Thank you!

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad to hear this, you are never too old to keep learning!

[@malcolmboyley2334]

Thank you so much for these videos which are so clear and concise and easy to understand.

[@stepbystepscience]

You are very welcome and thanks for the comment.

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It's cool that you still reply to comments from old videos

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Yes I do. I love to hear from viewers!

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Listening and learning here in New York City 2023 12:37 am Wednesday, March 15th watching and I should be sleeping ,because I have school tomorrow thank you for the video I appreciate it.

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Thanks for listening and I hope you got enough sleep!

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Glad to hear it. Thanks for your comment.

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Thank you i learned now you explain better than my teacher

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That is too bad. Thanks for the positive comment.

[@JulioCesar-hh9wq]

my mind is about to explode, thanks I've never had a better explanation about this

[@stepbystepscience]

So glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching.

[@SatonsClutch]

Absolutely phenomenal explanation. Thanks!

[@stepbystepscience]

You're very welcome! Glad you liked it.

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Glad to hear that! You are very welcome and thank for the comment.

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this was super helpful, you explained it simply and i could keep up with what was happening throughout the whole video :)

[@stepbystepscience]

Thanks, glad it was helpful!

[@sergiuq2good4u]

This is the first video I watched on your channel, and through the explanation I was always thinking: "Okay, I know how 30 Celsius feels, how does one Joule feel than??". I was impressed that you explained it eventually and now, I really understand. Thank you very much!

[@stepbystepscience]

Thanks for the comment and I hope you watch a few more.

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I appreciate that, thanks for your comment!

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Very good explanation. Vivid bold and blunt.

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Glad you liked it!

[@billburke-miskell8460]

Excellent explanation for those with gray matter challenged...

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad it was helpful!

[@AndreCarneiroSantiago]

I wish you give an example out in space. How do I calculate work when g is not a thing? And, on the definition of joules, they don't talk about time or mass, just force, and meter. Is there any difference applying 1 N over 1 m on 10 kg object or a 1 kg object, doesn't the time that I spend applying the 1-newton force over the meter matter at all?

[@jessebrown7957]

Bro Thank you so much 😭 I've been wrecking my brain with this cause I'm always overthinking stuff and the helps me feel balanced again

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad to hear it and thanks for the comment.

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Yes

[@sorenwintherlundbys]

Beautifully explained!

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Don't give up! One day it will click. Thanks for the comment.

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[@Plimothrock]

Thank You for your common sense explanation-I wish I knew you when I was in high school !

[@stepbystepscience]

Happy to help! Thank you for the comment.

[@Rickard_Martensson]

Was looking for a good explanation for a group of students im gonna teach. This was exactly what i was looking for, thank you!

[@stepbystepscience]

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Nice video thank keep producing such basic easier understanding videos

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[@drsavagecodm2666]

Fantastic explanation

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Thanks brotha!!! I’mma definitely pass my asvab

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Glad I could help and I hope the asvab test goes well.

[@trollobite1629]

Joule's contraption is an ingenious work of art.

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[@avirai47]

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[@youngsterxv3]

ty for explaining. very educational

[@stepbystepscience]

You are very welcome.

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

Positive comment, very good info!!!

[@stepbystepscience]

Up next...What is a Watt! It's gonna be good!

[@justinlloyd625]

Tremendous video! Very clear and easy to understand. Appreciate you sharing!

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad it was helpful!

[@sebbeballrog6205]

Thank you, this video was very helpful. Have a nice day.

[@stepbystepscience]

You are very welcome, thanks for commenting.

[@astroid9087]

👏 . I never realized I didn't know what joule is till I tried explaining it to my nephew. Great explanation 👌 👍

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad you liked it, thanks for the comment!

[@ORMSIRK]

David Mc G - Excellent explanation

[@stepbystepscience]

Thanks.

[@nadenitza]

Is the warmth and heating of your body representing the "equivalent of heat obtained", after mechanical force is spent (doing a pull up)?

[@stepbystepscience]

Part of it, yes.

[@bailey2879]

This was so helpful

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Great, and thanks for the comment

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[@grigor_karagozian6931]

I do not know how to ask you this ,but when you go back and fort between newton and joule I get confused can you explain in a way that anyone at any age could understand.

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Well done! We like knowing the why and how etc etc.

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad to hear it. Thanks for your comment.

[@dictgravestone8430]

thank you thank you thank you this helped me so much in my modules cause my teacher didnt explain it well thank you

[@stepbystepscience]

You are very welcome.

[@WaggonerB11]

I had a dream of housing units in the future. I took a minute to look at the power meter (today's meters are in kilowatt-hour). This meter of the future was in Joules. I want to say Joule-hour. It was a J followed by a backward lower case r.

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[@kevinwilliams5873]

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[@kanakavels]

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Cristal clear!

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Glad it was helpful and thanks for the comment.

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Yes

[@Jock21000]

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My pleasure, and thanks for watching!

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Thanks a nice comment given.

[@stepbystepscience]

Thanks to you too.

[@EmreErdogan99]

I want to ask something. When you are lifting 100 gram you are not applying 1 newton. You need to apply more than 1 newton for it to move up. Due to this when we consider ourselves, aren't we doing more work to raise it in the air?

[@stepbystepscience]

If you are raising the object at a constant velocity then you have to apply one newton of force.

[@EmreErdogan99]

@@stepbystepscience yes it seems logical but how about the initial movement? I think definition should be " 1 joule is the energy that we spent for an object to keep its speed constant at 1 meter per second for moving up" Would this be true? And secondly what is the exact energy we spent before reaching 1m/s and going the first meter ?

[@VergelOtto]

Like the explanation thanks.

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad you liked it!

[@debashishharichandan5648]

Great learning. Thanks a lot

[@stepbystepscience]

You are welcome!

[@__ICT__1288]

thanks a lot, it actually helps :D. It helps me in a lesson preparation

[@stepbystepscience]

You're very welcome!

[@focusonthefemale656]

I have a Q that's been bugging me. A satellite can't hover over a non-zero latitude without doing work through its a thruster to keep it from drifting toward the equator. But technically one could stick a pole up into space and stop it from drifting toward the equator. As I sit here at my non-zero latitude part of the g that I feel is actually acceleration toward the equator, not gravity. I lean away from the equator, and the surface of the water in my cup is not normal to the direction of true gravity. If I just sit here supported by the floor, I burn no calories to stop drifting toward the equator. But if I get in a helicopter, some of the joules the helicopter expends go toward keeping the craft from drifting toward the equator and are not spent fighting the true g. So which is it? Does it take joules to stop a mass from drifting toward the equator or not? The standard answer seems to be "it depends" based on whether the mass is propped up by a solid object is in orbit or hovering on a gas. But the Mickelson-Morley experiment showed a small often-ignored fluctuation in the speed of light as though the apparatus were being accelerated as a function of latitude, if I remember correctly. So, is the ground doing work on our feet? Or not? Certainly gas particles bump up against certain places in a container harder than others, don't they? E.g. air bumps more joules into the top east side of the southern wall and less into the bottom south side of the eastern wall, such that the heat in the air is essentially in orbit, while the air itself has work done on it during collisions to correct its course away from its orbital path. Right. I'm told I have major conceptual errors but my in-head visual-spatial models make sense to me. Where have I gone wrong? I'm stumped. Thanks. -Ryan

[@VinceStefanetti]

Great video! Made it easy to understand!

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad you liked it and thanks for watching!

[@Walksey]

Nice and simple, good one cobra

[@stepbystepscience]

Thanks 👍

[@Onlyfamoli]

Hey I'm a first year in electrotechnology and your videos are seriously the best, thank you so much for all this

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[@peaklandpond2850]

Excellent!

[@stepbystepscience]

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[@bbrai581]

Awesome lecture

[@stepbystepscience]

Thanks so much!

[@yellowlght]

It's not meter it's meter squared over second squared. Meaning a meter per meter...just as second squared s^2 is referred to as a second per second courtesy of wikipedia. When using the formula for calculating a Newton N = kg * m/s^2 ...the term s^2 stands for second per second. This s^2 term when used in calculating a newton stands for constant acceleration in other words a mass of 1 kg undergoing a constant acceleration of 1 meter per second would be accelerating at 2 meters per second a second later and 3 meters per second 3 seconds later and so on - so the question then is what does the m^2 stand for when calculating joules

[@avidrationalist7281]

where did you suddenly get that 9.81 m//s^2 value???

[@ichduj]

i just bought a 20 joules electric fencer. i have 3, 1 joule each. i am a farmer. sheep, cattle, goats, hogs. with my miles of fence (5 strand 12.5 ga ht wire and poly wire), and plenty of weed load, i hope the fence is 20x more psychologically embarrassing than the 1 joule fencers i love. understandably, the dry season doesn't help the critters find earth. i still don't have a clue what a joule is. but hope it means punch for the buck! i paid over $1000 for the fencer.

[@demeloalex]

Great! Thank you! 🙏🙏🙏

[@stepbystepscience]

Welcome!

[@AnilKumar-uz4hp]

Thanku so much Sir Best explanation

[@stepbystepscience]

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[@gosula.amaralingeswararao8698]

Sir ur explanation is good tq sir ji

[@stepbystepscience]

You're very welcome

[@Dhakshith1189]

Thank You so much!!!

[@stepbystepscience]

You're very welcome!

[@ganonrosario6627]

Thank you!

[@stepbystepscience]

Welcome!

[@BrandonCuringtonOfficial]

wait so... if the object is on wheels it would mean that it would take less force to push, so does that mean that it would take less joules to move an object with wheels as opposed to an object flat on the ground?

[@stepbystepscience]

Yes, it would require less work because the force would be less.

[@srinin4600]

Very good explanation. Please explain, what does it mean when we read on the top of the box of power surge protector, it is "2160 Joules". Thanks

[@rhashmi75]

Thank you for your explanation!

[@stepbystepscience]

You are very welcome and thanks for taking the time to comment.

[@SchotteJ]

I thought it requires you to exert 1N of force already to hold it still, off the ground? So would lifting the object away from the ground not require more force, causing the work required to raise it 1m to be greater than 1J (depending on the acceleration how much Work you actually put in it)? So, to put it in numbers, if the acceleration (a) of Earth's gravity is 9.81 m/s² and the mass (m) of the object is 0.102 kg, Earth is exerting 1 N of force (f). So the exact equal and opposite force will hold it still in the air. So if you were to lift it you would have to accelerate it from 9.81 m/s² to for example 9.82 m/s² to be able to even lift it, causing the force to be greater, thus the amount of work over 1 m also would be greater. Actually 102 grams against 9.81 m/s² acceleration is already slightly over 1 N (1.00062 N to be precise), but accelerating it at 9.82 m/s², would make it even more, at 1.00164 N and, over 1 m, would therefore be 1.00164 Nm, or Joule of Work. Am I doing this right? Edit: So, if I'm doing this right, then accelerating an object upward at 0.01 m/s² (which would actually be an acceleration of 9.82 m/s², if you add in the gravity) would be the average acceleration if you move the object 1 m over 13.643 seconds (0.01m = 1 cm, 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 cm = 91 cm (because for every second you accelerate 1 cm per second, so every subsequent second you move 1 cm more) and because we have 9 cm to go and will go at about 14 meters per second, we will need 9 : 14 = 0.642857, so approximately 0.643 seconds for the last 9 cm). And by that reason, if moving an object of 102 g, or 0.102 kg up at 0.01 m/s², which would be an acceleration of 9.82 m/s² if you add in gravity, is 1.00164 Joule of work, then to exert 1 Joule of work with the same acceleration, the weight would have to be 102 grams x (1 N : 1.00164 N) = 102 g x 0.998363 = 101.833 grams, or 0.101833 kg. Or easier: 1 Joule divided by the acceleration 1 J : 9.82 m/s² = 0.101833 kg of mass.

[@SchotteJ]

So, say you were to do a pull up of 60 cm (0.6 meters) over 1 second, that would be an acceleration of 0.6 m/s², plus the force of gravity, which is another 9.81 m/s², which would make your total acceleration 10.41 m/s². Then, multiply that by the mass in kg for the force, so in this case 95 kg x 10.41 m/s² = 988.95 N. And because you're doing that over a distance of 0.6 meters, you multiply it by 0.6 for Newtons per meter (Nm or Joule), so you'd actually be doing 988.95 N x 0.6 m = 593.37 Nm (or Joule) of Work.

[@MrNeox101]

Thanks this helped alot

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad to hear! You're welcome.

[@ferdouskabir9259]

just, this is great

[@stepbystepscience]

Thanks for the comment.

[@sunitaahiwale4117]

Thanks for helping

[@stepbystepscience]

Happy to help!

[@user-zs2nt4wy1u]

thank you so much i finally understand

[@stepbystepscience]

You are very welcome.

[@fatmafaisal4911]

great video

[@stepbystepscience]

Thanks!

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This was the best thing ever

[@stepbystepscience]

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[@raghavendrav7914]

Well explained

[@stepbystepscience]

Thank you very much for the comment.

[@natashamararia8019]

good explained

[@stepbystepscience]

Thanks so much!

[@georgenichles2083]

brilliantlyexplained

[@stepbystepscience]

Thanks so much!

[@dawnfaulkner3299]

thank you for this it helped

[@stepbystepscience]

You're welcome! Glad it helped.

[@grigor_karagozian6931]

so if you lift an object for a metre it =1nm what if you put it back down like lifting a dumbel

[@jahsehgaming5199]

Thanks helps a lot

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad it helped!

[@EddyWoon]

Yes to the metric system. I was watching some other video about energy but unfortunately all of its written content was in full caps lock and it uses the unit of CALORIE. As there are 2 different measurements for calorie (apparently differentiated by the casing of the "c") I truly wished that it had used the unit of Joules instead.

[@stepbystepscience]

Great point! Thanks for the comment.

[@juliehirsh1436]

I thought C was the speed of light?

[@christinerain6320]

Very nice,a little more info on the equivalent derived units of the joule will be of help thx...🙃

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad it was helpful!

[@sehar9050]

you made my life easier! thanks a lot

[@stepbystepscience]

No problem!

[@ajaykumarsrivastav4955]

Very good

[@stepbystepscience]

Tq.