Other forms: joules
Use the scientific term joule for talking about work, energy, or heat. One joule is equal to the work it takes to make a watt of power for a second, or to move a body one meter with a one-Newton force.
In physics, it's common to talk about joules of energy — one example used to illustrate a joule is lifting an apple, which weighs about one Newton. If you raise the apple one meter in the air, you've used one joule of work. The word joule comes from the English physicist James Prescott Joule, who studied the relationship between heat and mechanical work, research that led to the First Law of Thermodynamics.