Why it gets easier to push open a door, the further you are from the hinge?

Question

Why it gets easier to push open a door, the further you are from the hinge?

In: 212

Answer 1

Other answers are sort of correct, but they’re missing an important component: time. When you push on the door from farther away from the hinge, you’re often pushing the door over a longer period of time than if you’re pushing right at the hinge. It’s easier because you’re exerting that energy over a large period of time, which means that your rate of producing the energy (the power, in physics terms) is smaller. So you effectively don’t have to push as hard to get the same result because you’re pushing for longer.