Why it gets easier to push open a door, the further you are from the hinge?
In: 212
It’s the same amount of “work”–pushing hard for a short distance or pushing less hard for a longer distance–, but that doesn’t answer your question.
“Why is it easier?”
Imagine moving a large bucket of pennies. You could struggle to lift the whole bucket or you could scoop them out a handful at a time or you could pick each penny out one by one. You would probably pick the middle option, because that’s “easier”. It’s a task sized for you. If you were much stronger, you’d just lift the whole bucket. If you were much weaker, you would move one penny at a time. In all cases, you pick the “easy” option.
Back to doors. Why is it “easy” to push where the knob is? Because we deliberately put knobs where it would be easiest for a human to use. When we have very heavy doors, like on ships or in banks, we use wheels and cranks to make it less like lifting a heavy bucket and more like scooping handfuls of pennies. It becomes “easy” because we made it easy.
Latest Answers