Thursday, January 05, 2006

Lift a car using your muscle power

Yes! you can lift a car by using just you hands! The principle of physics to be applied here is Pascal's Law.

Two cylinders ( vertically placed, different cross-sectional areas ) are constructed with a liquid in the tube ( horizontal ) connecting them. The cylinders have movable pistons with bases, one to place the car and another to push with your hand.

Say, the area of the base on which the car is placed is A1 and the area of the base you are pushing is A2.
Let F1be the force applied to the car as a result of your pushing with the force F2.

From Pascal's Law,

F1/A1 = F2/A2

or

F2 = F1 * A2/A1

So if A1is much larger than A2, F2 is quite small, and so, a very small force is required on your part to lift the whole car.

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