How does making a lever longer increase the amount of force applied to it’s pivot point?

682 views

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

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Work is force times distance. If you have a long lever, you can apply a small force on it, but since you move it a long distance it still turns into a lot of work. On the other end of the lever the same work is active, but since the distance is much shorter, the force needs to be much higher.

Now with levers it is all a bit more complicated, so we don’t call it work but rather torque, but it is basically the same principle.

You are viewing 1 out of 6 answers, click here to view all answers.