In the surroundings of a thermodynamic system, external to it, all the various mechanical and non-mechanical macroscopic forms of work can be converted into each other with no limitation in principle due to the laws of thermodynamics, so that the energy conversion efficiency can approach 100% in some cases; such conversion is required to be frictionless, and consequently adiabatic. In particular, in principle, all macroscopic forms of work can be converted into the mechanical work of lifting a weight, which was the original form of thermodynamic work considered by Carnot and Joule (see History section above). Some authors have considered this equivalence to the lifting of a weight as a defining characteristic of work. For example, with the apparatus of Joule's experiment in which, through pulleys, a weight descending in the surroundings drives the stirring of a thermodynamic system, the descent of the weight can be diverted by a re-arrangement of pulleys, so that it lifts another weight in the surroundings, instead of stirring the thermodynamic system.
Such conversion may be idealized as nearly frictionless, though it occurs relatively quickly. It usually comes about through devices that are not simple thermodynamic systems (a simple thermodynamic system is a homogeneous body of material substances). For example, the descent of the weight in Joules stirring experiment reduces the weights total energy. It is described as loss of gravitational potential energy by the weight, due to change of its macroscopic position in the gravity field, in contrast to, for example, loss of the weight's internal energy due to changes in its entropy, volume, and chemical composition. Though it occurs relatively rapidly, because the energy remains nearly fully available as work in one way or another, such diversion of work in the surroundings may be idealized as nearly reversible, or nearly perfectly efficient.
In contrast, the conversion of heat into work in a heat engine can never exceed the Carnot efficiency, as a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. Such energy conversion, through work done relatively rapidly, in a practical heat engine, by a thermodynamic system on its surroundings, cannot be idealized, not even nearly, as reversible.
Thermodynamic work done by a thermodynamic system on its surroundings is defined so as to comply with this principle. Historically, thermodynamics was about how a thermodynamic system could do work on its surroundings.