Tyler Hathaway wrote:By that definition, a hovering helicopter is doing zero "work", but it sure requires a lot of "power". ;)
The analysis depends on how one draws "the box" of consideration. Work is being done on the air, accelerating molecules down to get a force up balancing gravity's force on the helicopter. But no work is being done on the helicopter!
Newton's laws of force and inertia are very simple, but also very non-intuitive. That's why it took ~10,000 years to figure them out.
