Like if you take a wrench and attach a long pipe to it so you can more easily turn whatever the wrench is holding. I just have trouble understanding how making the ‘arm’ longer increases the force on the pivot without you having to push any harder on the end of the arm.
In: Physics
It is like gearing down a car, with a gear you spin it more to produce less forward motion allowing more torque but lower speed. With a really long lever, it is the same thing. The amount of distance traveled by the levered end is lowered while the distance traveled by the end you are articulating goes up. You can measure this by strapping a load to an end of the lever and measuring its vertical distance depending on where the fulcrum is placed. The further the fulcrum from you, the lever operator, the lower the effort but less vertical distance that load will climb.
So if you need to lift a load three centimeters, the end of your lever can be quite far away from the fulcum such that a small child could articulate it. There is a demonstration of this principle in the Boston Science Museum.
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