What exactly is pressure?

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I can’t seem to wrap my head around the term pressure.

Vehicle tyres use air pressure, toilets faucets etc use pressure (presumably water pressure),
pressing onto something applies pressure, our blood has pressure, temperature is also affected by “pressure”.
I know there are various types of pressure, and I can’t think of any more examples at the moment, but my point is “pressure” sounds like a very arbitrary or vague umbrella term to me.

Help me make sense of it?

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14 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Pressure is a force over an area.

1 Pa = 1 N/m^2

A knife can cut through things because it can transfer a small amount of force to such a small area that it creates incredible pressure.

You can also think about it as a potential energy per unit volume.

1 Pa = 1 J/m^3

Water in a pipe is under pressure. If I want that water to go uphill, I need to give it energy. That the energy to move a certain volume of water is the pressure.

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