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Is there any good research done to find out the work done in clicking a mouse button.

any link to that would be greatly appreciated.

P.S.

i am not too sure whether this question belongs here or not, so please let me know, if it doesnt, i will remove it,

I have already googled "work done to click a mouse" "mouse click research" and oher relevant queries on google and google scholar, but only in vain!

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I think this may not be appropriate here, but we'll see what other people think. (Personally I imagine this sort of thing may be better handled by a web search.) – David Zaslavsky♦ Apr 27 '12 at 6:18
I did a google search before asking this question, but got no relevant results,and even on google scholar. anyways, i googled it again only to find the link to this question as the top result. ;-) – Tomarinator Apr 27 '12 at 6:27
2  
OK, well that sort of thing you'd want to mention in the question. Show that you've done your background research. – David Zaslavsky♦ Apr 27 '12 at 6:29

1 Answer

up vote 9 down vote accepted

To prove that experimental Physics is alive and well, I used my kitchen scales to measure the force needed to click the button on my mouse, and it turned out to be 100g i.e. 1 N plus or minus about 10%. The distance the button moves is about a millimeter i.e. 0.001m, plus or minus 20% (OK - you try measuring it without a micrometer to hand) so the work per click is 0.001J $\pm$ 22%.

The mouse does 0.001J work on me while the button is rising again, but I have not noticed any invigorating effects from this.

Note that I have ignored the work required to move my finger, i.e. I have assumed that I am 100% efficient (an approximation that my colleagues would question).

All suggestions for refinements to this calculation will be gratefully ignored.

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wow, very helpful indeed, how come this never came to my mind? – Tomarinator Apr 27 '12 at 7:20
4  
Because you haven't spent a lifetime as an experimental scientist? :-) – John Rennie Apr 27 '12 at 7:29

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