LONGMAN PHYSICS TOPICS General Editor: John L.

Lewis
IFORCESI
R. D. Harrison B.Sc., A.Inst.P.
Senior Lecturer in Physics
Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic
N.E. Co-ordinator for Nujjield O-Level Physics School Trials
Illustrated by T. H. McArthur
LONGMAN
LONGMAN GROUP LTD
London
Associated companies, branches and representatives throughout the world
Longman Group Ltd (formerly Longmans, Green & Co Ltd) 1968
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
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First published 1968
Reprinted with corrections 1970
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Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd. London and Frome
I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IThe author and publisher are grateful to the following for
permission to use photographs: frontispiece R. W. Evans;
figures 5 Dr H. E. Edgerton, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology; 6 Philip Harris Ltd; 7 Wakeman Farrance
Engineering Ltd, photograph by Cecil H. Greville Ltd;
9 Societe Encyclopedique Universelle ; 10 Mount Wilson
and Palomar Observatories; 14Barnaby's Picture Library,
photograph by F. J. Armes; 20 Fogg & Young Engineer-
ing Ltd, photograph by E. John Wells Ltd; 27 Shell
Photographic Unit; 28 Barnaby's Picture Library; 29b
Central Electricity Generating Board; 30 M-O Valve Co
Ltd; 31 Crown Copyright, Science Museum, London; 32
Radio Times Hulton Picture Library; 36 General Electric
Co Ltd, photograph by Lewis & Randall Ltd; 38 Educa-
tional Services Inc (still from the film The Pressure of
Light); 39 Royal Greenwich Observatory; 40 Samuel
Denison & Son Ltd; 41 Camera Press, photograph by
A. G. Hutchinson; 43 Barnaby's Picture Library, photo-
graph by A. L. Hunter; 44 Cement and Concrete Associa-
tion, photograph by Leonard G. Alsford; 45 Keystone
Press Agency. Photographs for figures 13, 18, 19, 26,27
and 35 were taken by J. Cummins. Figure 34isreproduced
from William Gilbert, De Magnete, Dover Publications,
Inc, New York, 1940, by permission of the publisher.
Cover photographs by courtesy of Keystone Press Agency
(front) and NASA (back).
NOTE
TO THE
TEACHER
This book is one in a series of physics background books
intended primarily for use with the Nuffield O-Level Physics
Project. The team of writers who have contributed to the series
were all associated with that project. It was always intended
that the Nuffield teachers' materials should be accompanied
by background books for pupils to read, and a number of such
books is being produced under the Foundation's auspices.
This series is intended as a supplement to the Nuffield pupils'
materials: not books giving the answers to all the investigations
pupils will be doing in the laboratory, certainly not textbooks
in the conventional sense, but books that are easy to read and
copiously illustrated, and which show how the principles
studied in school are applied in the outside world.
The books are such that they can be used with a conven-
tional as well as a modern physics programme. Whatever
course pupils are following, they often need straightforward
books to help clarify their knowledge, and sometimes to help
them catch up on any topic they have missed in their school
course. It is hoped that this series will meet that need.
This background series will provide suitable material for
reading in homework. This volume is divided into sections,
and the teacher may feel that one section at a time is suitable
for each homework session for which he wishes to use the
book.
This particular book is written as a background book for the
Forces section of Years I and, more particularly, II. It is hoped
that the examples given, which range rather beyond the Nuffield
course, will help pupils to appreciate the importance of forces
in everyday life and begin to explain how they come about,
thus laying the foundation for more formal studies later. At
the same time, some attention is paid to the role of forces in
technology and engineering. This is essentially a book for
pupils to browse in, taking up points which catch their interest
and possibly pursuing them further.
INTRODUCING
THIS BOOK
There are many different ways of looking at the things
around us. Some people are impressed by their beauty or
ugliness. Other people, looking at the same things, will
wonder how they were made or what their history has
been. I sometimes find it fun to think about all the forces
that are involved. I hope you will find this fun too.
ICONTENTS
What is a force?
Elastic forces
Gravitational forces
Impact forces and pressure
Cohesive forces
Electric and magnetic forces
Muscular forces
Forces due to light pressure
Summary and conclusions
6
9
12
18
24
32
36
38
40
WHAT IS
A FORCE?
6
If a stone lying in the middle of a level path suddenly
started to move, would you be surprised? Probably you
would, unless you believe in magic. Most people, if they
observed such a thing happening, would look for a cause.
The scientific name for a cause of motion is force. A
force is anything which can cause a body to start moving
when it is at rest, or stop it when it is moving, or deflect it
once it is moving. This is basically how a force is defined,
although you will learn a more precise definition later.
The only sure test for a force is to ask oneself, 'Can it
make a body start or stop moving?' That is how we recog-
nise the existence of forces. Once it is started, the body
can keep going by itself without the help of any force, but
another force is needed to stop it.
You may be surprised to learn that a body could go on
moving for ever without any force acting upon it. Most
things obviously come to rest rather quickly. This is be-
cause they are acted upon by aforce offriction which slows
them down. If the friction is small, for example when a
stone slides over smooth ice, then the body will go further.
We find that the smaller the friction, the further the body
will go. If we try to imagine what would happen if there
were no friction at all, we can see that the body would
probably go on and on for ever without stopping (unless
it bumped into something). We can never test this conclu-
sion exactly, since there is always some friction. Neverthe-
less, we have every reason to suppose it is true. The Earth,
for instance, has gone on revolving round the Sun for hun-
dreds of millions of years because there are almost no
forces to slow it down.
A force cannot exist by itself - it can only be exerted by
one body on another. The Earth pulls you and me and
apples and stones towards itself. You can push a pram and
make it start moving. A magnet can attract a piece of iron
toward itself. The wind can whisk a leaf into the air.
Something to think about
1. When an arrow is shot into the air, what force makes it start?
2. Once it is going, what forces are acting upon it?
3. If the ground or the target did not get in the way, would it go on moving
at the same speed for ever? If not, why not?
4. What makes it stop at the end of its flight?
WHAT IS A
FORCE?
5. In which direction do these forces act?
We are not going to tell you the answers to these straight away, because we
expect you will have no difficulty in guessing them. But you will find clues
later on, which will help you to decide whether you are right or wrong. Or you
can discuss it with your friends or your teacher.
Something to do
There are many different ways in which one body can exert a force on another.
Make a list of as many examples as you can think of and try to invent a name
for the kind of force involved in each case. Looking up books on physics or
engineering in the library may suggest some examples you had not thought of
for yourself. If you want to be very systematic, make your list with three
columns:
Body exerting force Body acted upon Type of force
but it does not matter if you decide to be less formal.
EQUILIBRIUM
In everyday life the most familiar forces are those we exert
ourselves through the action of our own muscles. Throw-
ing, kicking and catching a ball, propelling a pellet with a
pea shooter, lifting food to our mouths. These and many
other similar activities, depend on muscular forces to set
things in motion or to stop them.
But what happens when we stretch a spring or a piece
of elastic? Motion ceases, yet our nerves tell us that we
are still exerting a force - often quite a large one. Why do
we get no more starting or stopping?
The answer is probably obvious to you, but in case it
is not, think what happens when you tie your shoe. You
are pulling on each lace and thus exerting a force on your
foot, yet your foot does not begin to move.
Of course you are exerting several forces on your foot -
one in each lace, and one from your leg - and they cancel
out. The total force is zero.
When we add up forces in this way to get zero, we have
to take into account not only the size of the forces, but
also the directions in which they act. A body tries to start
moving in the direction of the force. If two equal forces
act in opposite directions they just balance and produce
no motion. Things like forces, which have direction as
well as strength, are called vectors. You will learn more
about them in your mathematics course.
7
WHAT IS A
FORCE?
1 Forces on afiagstafJ. How do the guy
ropes stop the flagstaff falling over?
What happens to the tensions in A. B
and C when the wind blows as shown?
2 Forces on a seated person.
A set of forces which just balance and produce no
motion is said to be in equilibrium. The world is liter-
ally full of forces in equilibrium. As you sit reading this
book, the force of gravity pulling you towards the earth
is just balanced by the support of the chair on your body.
The chair itself is held steady by an upward push of the
floor. A flagstaff is held steady by the pull of its guy ropes
and, again, by an upthrust from the ground. The tension
in the strings of a piano is maintained by the counter
forces in the piano frame. The pull of all the strings in a
piano amounts to several tens of thousands of newtons, so
the frame has to be a very strong one.
We soon lose count of all the different forces around
us. Luckily we can forget about most of them, since they
simply cancel each other out and produce no motion.
1
Wind)
upthrust
from ground
8
2
T
thrust of
chair upwards
ELASTIC
FORCES
3 Equal and opposite pulls ofthe spring
on the left and right just cancel out so
that the bit of spring at A remains at
rest.
4 A plank bent by a weight.
5 A ball struck by a bat.
4
Consider the stretching of a spring. Can you remember
what it feels like to pull out a spring or a piece of wire?
At first when we apply a small force using our muscles,
there is a slight movement and the spring begins to get a
bit longer. Very soon this motion stops. We become aware
of the tension in the spring. Each part of the spring is in
equilibrium with this tension acting in opposite directions
on each side of it. If we pull a bit harder the spring moves
a little more until the tension again balances each part.
The greater the pull, the greater the stretch and the
greater the tension. (We must not let the pull be too great
or it will spoil the spring or even break it.) If we let go, the
tension sets the parts of the spring in motion again until it
gets back to its original length. The tension is a real force,
according to our definition that a force is something
which causes motion.
Forces produced by stretching, or bending, or twisting
a body, that is, by deforming it, are called elastic forces.
Whenever a body is deformed in any way, so that its shape
or size is altered, elastic forces will be brought into play
which try to restore the original size or shape. Conversely,
when a body is subjected to a force it will be deformed.
What happens to a football when you kick it? What
happens to the floor when you stand on it? Luckily these
deformations are often so small that we can forget about
them, but they are always there.
5
9
ELASTIC
FORCES
10
Something to do
See if you can detect the deformation in a thick plank or bar of metal sup-
ported at each end when a weight is put on to the middle. You might find a
mirror and a beam of light from a torch useful.
Elastic deformation is generally the most convenient
method available for detecting and measuring forces. It
is also useful for producing forces of known strength. If
we want to know how big a force we have acting, we
measure the amount of stretching or twisting it produces.
Is it safe to assume that if we have twice the stretch we
have twice the force without checking to make sure that
this is so?
Something to do
Try to find out if the stretch in a rubber band is proportional to the number
of forces acting on it, so that twice the force gives twice the stretch, and so on.
You will need a number of identical forces. How can you arrange this? (You
can use as many rubber bands as you like and might find a paper clip, a ruler
and a pencil and paper useful. Or perhaps you can find a completely different
way of doing it.)
HOOKE'S LAW
Probably you will find that if you double the force you
get more or less double the stretch - provided you do not
stretch it too far. Nearly all materials behave in this way.
If they do they are said to obey Hooke's Law, which is
named after Robert Hooke, who first studied the stretch-
ing of springs about three hundred years ago.
Hooke's Law is a delightfully simple relationship be-
tween force and stretch. We could hardly have anything
simpler. Life is very much easier for engineers and physi-
cists when their materials obey this law. But it is not a
fundamental law of nature. There is no theory to prove
that all substances must obey it. It is just an experimental
fact that most substances obey it up to a point. Do you
think plasticine or crepe paper or even ordinary elastic
obey Hooke's Law? Perhaps you had better have another
look at the stretching of your rubber bands.
In any case, ordinary materials only obey Hooke's Law
ELASTIC
FORCES
6 A spring balance used for measuring
force in newtons.
7 An Engineer's Proving Ring used for
measuring forces up to 1800 N. The
dial gauge in the middle will measure
very small deformations ofthe ringfrom
a true circleand these indicate theforce.
up to a certain point. If they are stretched too far beyond
the elastic limit an extra force produces more extra stretch
than it should and a little more force still will break the
material. We must always be very careful not to assume
that Hooke's Law holds when it does not.
Something to do
Stretch a number of different substances until they break. or bend them if that
is easier. Do they break suddenly, or tear, or give gradually? Do they seem to
obey Hooke's Law at all, or is their elastic limit very small? If you have to bend
them, do they break suddenly (that is, are they brittle?) or do you have to keep
bending them backwards and forwards until they are fatigued?
When a spring or a piece of metal does obey Hooke's
Law, we can use it to measure forces. The amount of
stretch or deformation tells us what the force is. A spring
balance calibrated in force units is generally the most con-
venient method of measuring forces.
6
7
II
GRAVITA-
TIONAL
FORCES
8 A weight of I kg. A cube of water
of side 10 em has a mass of I kg and
a weight of 98 N or I kg[.
12
WEIGHT
Perhaps the most familiar force of all is that of gravity -
the force which pulls things towards the Earth. It certainly
is a force, because if you let something go, it starts to
move - to fall. But even when a body is not free to fall,
it is still acted upon by gravity and a counter-force is
needed to keep it still.
The gravitational force on a body is called its weight.
The weight of one kilogramme of material near the
surface of the Earth is about 98 newtons, which is also
known as a kilogramme force (kgf). We have to be very
careful not to confuse mass (quantity of matter) with
weight (gravitational force on that matter). In everyday
life we talk about weighing when we mean measuring the
mass, which is sometimes very confusing.
WEIGHING FORCES
Another method of measuring forces is to weigh them,
that is, to balance them against a known weight.
Something to do
See if you can devise a method of weighing forces to enable you to measure a
force without using a spring balance. You need some weights and a balance
beam or a pulley.
If you like, you could try to use this arrangement to see how strongly
you can pull in different directions; up, down and horizontally. Besides your
balance. you will need another pulley (or a smooth rod) fixed to the ground
and a piece of clothes line. Bricks in a bucket might make suitable weights.
A brick has a mass of about 35 kg and weighs 35 N.
Something to think about
Do you think the weight of a body will be the same everywhere on the Earth's
surface? Will it be the same if we go up a mountain or down a coal-mine? On
the Moon? Way out in space? Would your force-weighing apparatus be any
use in these other places? If not, what other sort of apparatus would you have
to take with you on a space journey to be able to measure forces?
WEIGHTLESSNESS
The force of gravity is the most universal of all forces of
nature and probably the most mysterious. It acts upon us
everywhere all the time. No one can ever get away from it.
GRAVITATIONAL
FORCES
Suppose, however, that you were in a lift falling freely
without a rope to restrain it. Do you think you would still
feel the floor of the lift pressing against your feet? Would
you feel any gravity at all? Would you have any weight?
When one is falling freely under gravity, one is said to
be in a weightless state. Near the surface of the Earth, such
an experience will come to a sudden and unpleasant end
when one hits the ground, but astronauts travelling round
the Earth are often weightless for very long periods.
Something to think about
Would it be pleasant to be weightless? Could you move around very easily?
Would you know where you were, what is up and what is down? Could you
make things stay put? Would it be good for you to be weightless? What do
you think happens to muscles which are not used?
The Earth may be regarded as being in free fall as it travels round the Sun,
but it is still possible to detect the Sun's gravitational attraction, for example
in 'Spring' tides. Can you explain why? Which part of the Earth do you think
is in free fall?
UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION
One of the most mysterious features of gravity is the fact
that, unlike the other forces we have considered so far, it
acts across space - across a perfectly empty vacuum. There
is nothing connecting the body attracting and the body
attracted - nothing between the Earth and the falling
apple. This feature is termed action at a distance and the
early scientists were very puzzled about it. Eventually Sir
Isaac Newton avoided the problem by pointing out that,
even if we do not know how it happens, there is no doubt
that it does and it is more profitable to concentrate on find-
ing out as much as we can about how gravity behaves -
that is, to describe the laws of gravitation - than to wonder
how it works. Newton himself found out most of what we
know on the subject and published it in 1687in one of the
greatest books on physics, his Principia. It is only in the
present century that we have learned a little more about
it, and even now we do not know how it acts. Gravitation
is regarded as one of the fundamental forces of nature
which cannot be explained in terms of anything simpler.
Perhaps the most surprising of Newton's conclusions
13
GRAVITATIONAL
FORCES
9 Gravitational attraction between
Jupiter and its 'moons' causes them to
go round Jupiter just as the Moon goes
round the Earth. Jupiter's moons can be
seen in a small telescope or binoculars.
Why do you think Jupiter itself is flat-
tened?
10 The Andromeda Nebula, just visible
to the naked eye on a clear, dark night,
is a collection of about JOOOOOOOOOOO
stars 25 million light years (24 X
JO" m) from the Earth. The stars whirl
around the centre and the galaxy is held
together by gravitational forces. There
are millions of galaxies in the universe.
(Photograph from the Mount Wilson
and Palomar Observatories.)
14
was that all bodies attract each other gravitationally. It
is not only that the Earth attracts small objects on its sur-
face. It also attracts the Moon and deflects its path into
a more or less circular orbit around the Earth. The Sun
attracts the Earth and deflects its path into a more or less
circular orbit around the Sun. Also the Moon attracts the
Earth and moves the oceans over its surface, causing the
tides. Distant stars attract each other so that they cluster
in huge galaxies, like the Milky Way. Even insignificant
objects like two apples attract each other, but the force
between them is far too small to be detected. Only the
theory tells us it is there.
There is a very famous story that when Newton was
trying to explain why the Moon goes round the Earth,
GRAVITATIONAL
FORCES
he sat under an apple tree and was hit on the head by
a falling apple. Suddenly he realised that the Moon falls
round the Earth under the force of gravity, which stretches
all that way out into space. No one is quite sure whether
this story is true or not; it is apocryphal.
Nobody quite knows how people get new ideas. Cer-
tainly one has to think very hard about a problem for a
long time before one can solve it. Then very often the
solution comes quite suddenly, when one is thinking of
something else. A chance happening, like an apple falling,
may provide the vital clue. So even if the story of Newton
and the apple is not true, it could be true. It tells us some-
thing about how men think.
,.Nowadays, when physicists need to measure verysmall twists. they attach a small
mirror to the moving part. The light reflected from this mirrorforms a bright spot
on a scale. When the mirror twists slightly, the spot moves along the scale and
magnifies the movement. The modern versionis illustrated in the photographbelow.
When Newton put forward his theory, he was able to
account for so many different phenomena that nearly
everyone agreed that it must be correct. Nevertheless,
there were doubters who needed to be convinced that it
was true. About fifty years after Newton, Bouguer was able
to show that a small lead weight was attracted by a moun-
tain, so that a plumb line on the side of a mountain did not
point quite to the centre of the Earth.
In 1798 Cavendish performed a celebrated experiment
to measure the force between two sets of metal spheres.
As the force is so small, he hung two of his spheres on
a very fine wire which could be twisted by a very small
force. ':' When he brought two heavy lead spheres up to
the sides of the suspended spheres they moved slightly,
although the movement was very small and difficult to
detect, showing that they were indeed being attracted
gravitationally. No one could have any more doubt. From
the size of the deflection Cavendish was able to work out
the size of the force between any two bodies, and this
knowledge has enabled astronomers and astro-physicists
TWO IMPORTANT EXPERIMENTS
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
-,
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
1
G
'
Ii
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
Chimborazo
I
I
,
I
I
I
I
I
: parallel beams of light
V from a distant star
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
elf
i\
I
11 Bouguer's experiment (1740). The
mountain Chimborazo, in South
America. attracts a plumb-line towards
itself by gravity. Measuring the angles
that the plumb-line makes to the light
from a distant star on each side of the
mountain shows the existence of this
attraction. The angles in the diagram
are very much exaggerated and the
curvature of the Earth has been
neglected. (A similar experiment was
carried out by Maskelyne, the Astro-
nomer Royal. in 1774. on Schiehallion
in Scotland.)
15
GRAVITATIONAL
FORCES
12
13
lamp
fine thread
A'
A and A' are large fixed
lead spheres.
Band B' are suspended
lead spheres.
The arrows show the
direction of the
attraction on Band B'
reflected
light
position of spot
of light shows
how far rod
has twisted
12 & 13 Diagram and photograph ofa
modern version of Cavendish's experi-
ment.
16
GRAVITATIONAL
FORCES
to measure many properties of the stars and planets, in-
cluding the mass of the Earth. Cavendish's experiment
was undoubtedly one of the most important (and diffi-
cult) experiments ever carried out in the whole history of
science.
Bouguer and Cavendish and other physicists were able
to show by direct experiment that Universal Gravitation
really does exist. But even if these experiments had never
been carried out we should probably still believe in it
because it enables us to explain a very large number of
different natural phenomena. Perhaps the greatest triumph
of the theory came in 1846. The planet Uranus, which had
been found in 1781 by Sir William Herschel, was found to
falter slightly in its journey round the Sun, sometimes
going a little too fast and sometimes a little too slow. Two
mathematicians, Adams and Leverrier, thought this might
be because it was being attracted by another planet
moving even further from the Sun. They worked out
where this should be and, sure enough, when the astro-
nomers looked in this direction in the sky, they found a
new planet, Neptune. No scientific theory can achieve a
greater success than this - to predict something com-
pletely new.
THE INVERSE SQUARE LAW
The force of gravity depends on the distance between
the gravitating bodies, becoming rapidly smaller as they
get further apart. That is one reason why we are more
conscious of the pull of the Earth than that of the Sun,
although the Sun is many times bigger than the Earth.
If the distance between two bodies is doubled, the gravi-
tational attraction between them is one-quarter, that is
-1, of its previous value. If the distance is trebled, the force
2
2
is only one-ninth, or -1, and so on. A law of this type is
3
2
called an inverse square law. Later on, you will study
several other inverse square laws in physics.
The inverse square law is probably a result of the fact
that we live in a three-dimensional world, with three dis-
tinct directions, for example, North, East and Up.
17
IMPACT
FORCES
AND
PRESSURE
18
COLLISIONS
A moving body colliding with a stationary one can set it
in motion, so it must exert a force on it. Such a force may
be termed an impact force.
Something to do
Try to find out what happens when two Dinky cars or, better, two trolleys
made of Meccano collide. Let one collide with the other at rest. What is the
effect of making the moving car move faster') What happens if one car is made
heavier by putting a weight on it? What happens if two cars moving in the
same direction collide? What happens in a head-on collision? Then try all this
again using marbles or ball bearings. Do these make it easier or more difficult
to see what is happening?
Something to think about
For how long do you think an impact force lasts? What would happen if you
kept on throwing things at a body one after another? For example, a stream of
peas from a pea-shooter hitting a piece of cardboard hanging from a string?
What would be the effect of shooting the peas twice as often or making them
move twice as fast or making them twice as heavy?
Impact forces arise in all sorts of different ways which
often get very complicated, so that it is difficult to see
exactly what is going on. The simplest cases occur when
smooth hard spheres, like marbles or billiard balls, collide.
Then there are no complications due to the shape or mate-
rial of the colliding bodies, and the effects of friction are
very small. When physicists understand what happens with
billiard balls, it helps them to explain the behaviour both
of tiny things like atoms and enormous things like stars. It
is good science to study simple things first and then go on
to more complicated situations.
In all impacts, one body hits another and exerts a force
on it which causes it to move. If the first body moves
twice as fast the forces are (usually) twice as great, and
if the moving body is made twice as heavy, other things
being the same, the force will be twice as great.
WINDS AND WATER JETS
If a stream of particles, like peas from a pea-shooter, all
hit the same target, each tiny impact produces a very small
IMPACT FORCES
AND PRESSURES
14
force for a very short time one after the other. This is
almost the same as exerting a steady force. In fact, the
smaller the impacts and the faster they arrive, the more
like a steady force it gets. This is how jets of water and
gusts of air exert a force. Each molecule of water or air
exerts an impact force one after the other.
wind
Something to think about
How does wind propel a yacht? Probably you will have no great difficulty in
seeing what happens when the wind is blowing from behind, but what happens
when the wind is blowing from the front? Here is a diagram to help.
The keel plays two very important parts. Can you see what they are? Why does
a sailor have to tack (that is, to go first in one direction and then in another)
when he wants to sail against the wind?
/
direction of net
force on sails
cleat
mainsail
tiller
rudder
mainsheet 15
w n ~
deflected
by sails
14 and 15 How a yacht sails close
hauled against the wind. The burgee on
the masthead shows the wind direction.
Why do the crew have to lean so far
out of the boat? Sheet is the nautical
term for the rope, attached to the clew
of the sail, which must be held tight by
the helmsman or crew.
FLIGHT
The forces concerned with making an aeroplane fly are
rather interesting and basically very simple. There is a
propeller, or jet engine, which moves the aeroplane
through the air and a wing which supports it against
gravity.
In trying to understand how an aeroplane wing works, it
does not matter whether the wing moves through the air,
or the air moves past the wing. Both situations produce a
lift. This is why it is useful for aeronautical engineers to be
able to test an aeroplane in a wind tunnel before trying to
make it fly. (If you have any difficulty in seeing that the
19
IMPACT FORCES
AND PRESSURES
two situations are equivalent in producing lift, get hold of
a toy celluloid windmill. First blow on it and then sweep it
through the air.)
In explaining an aeroplane wing, we will make things
easier for ourselves by supposing that the air is blowing
past the wing.
net force
16 How an aeroplane wing works.
Part of the force supports the aeroplane
and part produces a backward 'drag'.
deflected
water stream
net force
pressure
deflected
air stream
20
One way in which lift might be produced would be for
a stream of air to strike the underside of the wing and be
deflected downwards. This would produce an upward
impact force on the underside of the wing which would
support the aeroplane against gravity. This is in fact the
mechanism of the water ski. It would not, however, be
very suitable for an aeroplane because the backward drag
would be too great. Instead, the air stream is deflected
over the top of the wing in such a manner that the mole-
cules are less likely to bombard the upper surface of the
wing, i.e., the pressure is reduced there. This is known as
the Bernouilli effect. The normal pressure beneath the
wing now provides the necessary upward force. The air-
flow is still deflected downwards after passing over the
wing (can you see why this must be so?), so that if an
aeroplane flew very close above your head, you would
feel the downdraught of air as it went past. Now can you
see how a propeller works? It is rather like a little wing
being rotated through the air, which deflects a stream of
air backwards. Perhaps you have seen this when an aero-
plane is 'revving up' on the ground.
The art of designing an aeroplane wing is to make sure
that the drag it exerts on the forward motion of the plane
is as small as possible, and also that the machine can be
manceuvred safely when it is flying. The design of a modern
aeroplane demands great mathematical skill, the use of
IMPACT FORCES
AND PRESSURES
vast computers and large-scale experiments. It may cost
hundreds of millions of pounds.
Jet and rocket engines also throw a jet of air or gas
backwards and are themselves pushed forward by the
reaction. Perhaps you have seen the same thing happening
when you blow up a balloon and let it go, or let go a hose-
pipe when the water is full on. If enough gas is pushed out
very fast, enormous thrusts can be generated. Some rocket
motors can produce a force of millions of newtons.
PRESSURE
When the individual molecules of a gas or liquid collide
with the walls of a container or with each other, they exert
impact forces. These all add up to asteady force orpressure.
If we try to compress a fluid, the molecules beat against
the walls more frequently and increase the pressure.
In gases, the increase in pressure for a small compres-
sion is quite small. Gases can be compressed easily. But
liquids resist compression very strongly indeed. An enor-
mous pressure is needed to compress them even slightly.
Liquids are almost incompressible. Pressure in liquids is
one of the most convenient ways of exerting very large
forces in the laboratory, in manufacturing industry and in
various pieces of moving machinery.
The basic idea is very simple. The liquid is compressed
by a little piston of area a, which is connected by a strong
tube (why must it be strong?) to a cylinder in which a large
piston of area A can move. It does not require a very large
force to move the little piston slightly and impart a
large pressure to the liquid. But since pressure is, by
definition, force/area and is the same throughout a liquid,
large force F At
a
little movement
piston area A
piston area a
forc,,-e
17 Diagram ofa simple hydraulic
system.
small force large movement
(may be replaced by a pump)
narrow tube
(may be flexible)
21
IMPACT FORCES
AND PRESSURES
18 A simple manometer measuring an
excess pressure of 166 em of(coloured)
water by 'weighing' it against the gravi-
tational pull on the water.
19 A Bourdon gauge used to measure
pressure by the deformation of the
coiled tube.
20 An industrial hydraulic press which
can exert a maximum of 500 000 N.
The oil tank and the pump jar com-
pressing the oil can be seen at the top.
The large cylinders are at the bottom.
the force exerted on the large piston will be A / a times as
large as the force on the small piston.
Thus a hydraulic system acts as a device which can
magnify a force, transmit it over a distance and make it
turn round a corner. A familiar example is the hydraulic
brake system of a car. For continuous operation, the small
piston may be replaced by a pump. Hydraulic car lifts
used in garages work on this principle.
When it comes to measuring pressure, there are two
main types of pressure gauge - the Bourdon type, which
depends on the deformation produced by pressure forces,
and the manometer, which weighs a pressure against
gravity. These are examples of the two basic methods of
measuring forces which were described earlier.
1
"
I
18
22
IMPACT FORCES
AND PRESSURES
PRESSURE IN THE EARTH
Although the Earth is mainly composed of solid rocks, it
is interesting to guess the pressure at its centre as though
it were a liquid. This is actually quite a sensible thing to do
because over the enormous distances of the Earth the
rigidity or strength of the rocks is not nearly enough to
support their weight. They rely on the pressure of the
rocks underneath them to keep them from falling to the
centre of the Earth.
We can use the formula P = pgh, which gives the pres-
sure in a liquid of density p at a distance h below the sur-
face. g is the strength of gravity. The average density of
rocks in the Earth is about 5 500 kilogramme per cubic
metre and the depth is the radius of the Earth, 6 400000 m.
We have to be a bit more careful about g. The strength
of gravity on the surface of the Earth is about 9.8 Njkg.
But the strength of gravity right at the centre of the Earth
is zero. Can you see why? Let us take the average value,
say 5 Njkg. This may not be quite correct, but at least it
lets us make a guess to find out about how big the pressure
will be. A scientist would say he was 'making an order of
magnitude estimate to the first approximation'. That is
rather a pompous way of saying he is making a guess to
see about how big it might be, which will tell him whether
anything is likely to happen as a consequence. Thus we
get the pressure at the centre of the Earth:
P = 5 500 X5 X6 400 000 = 180000 000 000 Nj m2
or 18x10
1 1
Njm
2
This is a truly enormous pressure, much bigger than we
can conceive of in everyday terms.
Something to think about
What sort of effect do you think such an enormous pressure will have on the
rocks which make the Earth? Remember that any force will produce some
deformation and that things usually break if the force on them gets too big.
You can read a lot more about pressure in the book
Pressures in this series, but pressure provides such an im-
portant way of exerting forces that it could not have been
left out of this book altogether.
23
COHESIVE
FORCES
A less obvious type of force is exerted whenever you pick
up one end of a stick, and the other end comes too. Have
you ever thought how surprising it is that this happens?
The far end of the stick can only begin to move if some
sort of force is exerted on it, so there must be a very com-
plicated set of forces acting right through the stick. There
must be similar forces through any other piece of solid
matter. These forces are called 'cohesive' forces.
Cohesive forces are the forces which hold pieces of
matter together and give them strength. All matter tends
to stick together to some extent - some substances, such as
iron and diamond, do so much more strongly than others.
Gas molecules have so little cohesion that they just
flyaway from each other. A great many physicists and
chemists and other scientists devote themselves to finding
out how different substances stick together, particularly
those which have some use.
There must be two sorts of force in a solid or a liquid:
one which attracts the molecules and makes them tend to
come together, and another which keeps them apart, the
two being in balance. If there were no repulsive forces,
the atoms would just collapse in on each other until some
sort of force prevented them going any further.
These balanced attractive and repulsive forces are also
responsible for the elasticity of a body, that is, its resist-
ance to having its size and shape changed by the applica-
tion of a force. If the force applied is too big, however, it
will overcome the forces between the molecules, and the
21 The forces between the atoms in a
solid. The atoms arrange themselvesso
that the two sets of forces are just in
equilibrium. There is also attraction
between atoms which are not 'next
door' to each other.
24

force of repulsion

force of attraction
both sets of forces
act through the
centres of atoms
COHESIVE
FORCES
material will break or collapse. Under the enormous pres-
sures at the centre of the Earth the atoms themselves
break down to some extent and occupy a much smaller
volume than normally. One consequence of this is that
below a depth of about 3000 km rocks do, in fact, behave
like a liquid. Convection currents in the liquid rock are
now believed to cause the Earth's magnetism and also,
over millions of years, to raise mountains.
FRICTION
If we try to make one body slide over another, we find
that a force acts between them which tries to prevent the
motion. This force is called friction and it is a very familiar
kind of force. It is peculiar because it cannot start a body
moving - it can only stop it once it is moving, or prevent
it from ever starting to move. Very often we regard fric-
tion as a nuisance because it makes it more difficult to
bicycle, or slows down our car, but in fact life without
friction would be almost impossible. Think what would
happen if there were no friction between our feet and the
floor.
Something to think about
Make a list of examples of useful friction and another of harmful friction. Can
you suggest ways of increasing friction when we want it and of decreasing it
when we need to keep it as small as possible?
Something to do
See if you can devise a simple way of finding out how much friction there is
between two flat surfaces of various materials. The rubber bands might be
useful again for measuring the forces. You could try things like wood, paper,
cloth, glass, sandpaper and so on. Does it matter how big the surfaces are?
Does it matter how strongly they are pressed together? Which pair 'of surfaces
gives the greatest friction? Which pair gives the least? Is the friction the same
everywhere on the surface? Is it the same when the surfaces are sliding over
each other, and when they are not?
You should have no great difficulty in getting the answers to these questions,
but your answers will not be very precise. They are qualitative rather than
quantitative - they can answer the question, 'What happens?' but not the
question, 'How big?'
25
COHESIVE
FORCES
In fact, friction has always been regarded as rather a
difficult field for scientific investigation, because little
things like a greasy fingerprint can upset all the results.
It is only in the last twenty years that really reliable and
reproducible results have been obtained, that is, results
which can be obtained by different people without dis-
agreement. This is, of course, very important if something
is to be regarded as properly scientific.
Nevertheless, some work was done on friction a long
time ago and led to some rather important conclusions.
The friction between two bodies can never be greater than
a certain amount called the limiting friction. When the
bodies are sliding over each other, the friction is a little
less than this. Did you find this in your experiment?
If the normal or perpendicular force pressing the two
surfaces together is doubled, the limiting friction is also
doubled.
If the force pressing the surfaces together is kept con-
stant, but the area of the surfaces in contact is doubled,
the limiting friction is unchanged. Do you think this is
really surprising? What do we call a force divided by an
area?
22 Illustration of the Laws of Friction.
(i) Double the normal force - double
the friction. (ii) Double the area in
contact - friction remains the same.
normal

friction
force
moving
force I I
f

force friction
force
moving
force I ]
ii f
normal
force
moving
force r------'===-------'------,
normal
force
moving
force "'"
f
26
The actual value of the limiting friction depends on
what two materials are pressed together. Smooth surfaces
like glass and polished metal have very little friction.
COHESIVE
FORCES
23 A theory of friction. As the force
pressing the surfaces together increases,
the high spots in (i] like A, Band C
squash fiat until the area in contact is
large enough to support the force as
in Iii).
Rough surfaces like sawn wood or sandpaper have a lot
of friction. In nearly every case the limiting friction is less
than the force pressing the surfaces together.
A THEORY OF FRICTION
Quite recently it has become possible to explain these
effects as a result of cohesive forces between atoms in the
two surfaces. We must remember that even the smoothest
surface would look very rough and, indeed, mountainous
if we were only about the size of an atom. So when we
press two surfaces together It will be something like
Figure 23.
Only high spots like A, Band C will actually touch. So
of course the pressure at these points will be quite enor-
mous, and the tiny 'hills' which are in contact will tend to
squash flat. The harder we push the surfaces together, the
more these points squash. They will go on squashing until
the area in contact has become big enough to support the
force. This squashing under pressure is really quite drastic
(almost as bad as the squashing of the atoms at the centre
of the Earth). The two bits in contact become almost
liquid and flow into each other and stick together - this
process is known as cold welding and is sometimes used
by engineers to stick things together.
Now, if we want to make the surfaces slide past each
other we have got to break all these tiny little welds, and
as fast as we do so, new points will come into contact and
weld together.
Something to think about
Can you see how this model explains why we get friction and why the laws of
friction are what they are'? If you have any difficulty, you might find it helps
to try pressing two rough pieces of plasticine together and then trying to make
one slide past the other.
There is, unfortunately, no space to describe the in-
genious experiments which have been carried out to show
that this is the correct explanation of friction, but before
leaving this topic we must show why it is a useful, as well
as an interesting, theory.
If we want to make friction as small as possible, the
27
COHESIVE
FORCES
28
theory tells us that we must either prevent the high spots
from sticking together or make sure that it is very easy to
tear them apart again after they have stuck.
A film of oil can prevent the two surfaces ever quite
sticking together. That is why lubrication is so important
in all the moving parts of a machine. It not only reduces
friction, but also wear, which may be even more serious.
Nowadays a very thin layer of air at high pressure is some-
times used for lubrication instead of oil. It serves the same
purpose of keeping the surfaces apart, and allows sliding
to take place even more easily than oil. The same prin-
ciple is used on a big scale in hovercraft.
Another way of reducing friction is to make one of the
surfaces of quite a soft material, so that even if they do
stick together, they can easily be pulled apart again. This
is the principle used by engineers in white metal bearings
which are used in motor-car engines and other pieces of
machinery.
Yet another way is to look for a material whose atoms
are so strongly joined to one another that they do not
easily join up to the atoms of a different material. Poly-
tetrafluorethylene, or PTFE for short, is such a material.
It slides over almost all other substances with very little
friction and is used, among other things, for the best and
most expensive skis.
The theory of friction is a valuable guide when it comes
to looking for new materials which will give low friction.
SURFACE TENSION
Things to do
Make a needle float on water. You will need a very steady hand and clean
fingers. It may help to float the needle on a piece of paper which will eventually
sink. The important thing is to avoid getting the top of the needle wet.
Make a boat of paper and put a little piece of camphor in the stern so that it
just touches the water. The boat should dart about over the water.
Watch carefully what happens to a drop of water placed on a greasy surface
and another on a clean surface. What effect does adding a little detergent have
on the drop placed on a greasy surface? Watch carefully what happens when
a drop of water drips off a tap.
Try to waterproof a piece of blotting paper by dipping it in melted wax (be
careful not to start a fire) or a waterproofing solution.
Blow some bubbles with soap solution and a piece of tubing. See if you can
COHESIVE
FORCES
blow a big bubble on one tube and a little one on another. What happens when
you join up the two tubes with rubber tubing? What does this tell you about
the pressure inside different sizes of soap bubble?
glass tubes
little
bubble
rubber tubes
big
bubble
Something to think about
Why does a piece of blotting paper soak up water, but a raincoat or a piece of
canvas repel water, "atleast until it becomes really wet?
Can you see any connection between the various things you have just been
asked to do?
Some of the most striking results of the cohesive forces
between atoms are seen in liquids. All liquids appear to
have an invisible 'skin' round them which pulls them into
drops. This 'skin' behaves as though it were in tension,
like an elastic sheet, and can exert forces on other bodies;
for instance, to make a piece of camphor move, or to sup-
port a needle.
net force
Figure 25(a) is very similar to Figure
21 representing a solid. This does not
mean that liquids are the same as solids
inside. Such diagrams are intended only
to illustrate symbolically a single point
- in this case the balance between
attractive and repulsiveforces.
both sets of forces
act through the
centres of atoms

force of repu Ision
------7
force of attraction
Figure 25(a) shows some of the atoms near the surface
of a liquid. The molecules in the body of the liquid are
attracted by other molecules all round them and there is
no force on them in any particular direction. But at A we
29
stretched
skin
25(b)
25(a) (right) How cohesiveforces cause
surface tension. The attractive forces
on a molecule in the surface of a liquid
tend to pull it back into the liquid. Ifan
elastic skin is stretched and deformed:
the net force it exerts is perpendicular
to the skin. Thus a liquid behaves as if
it were covered with an elastic skin.
have a molecule trying to get out of the liquid. The attrac-
tions of the other molecules tend to pull it back. Can you
see how this will have an effect like that of an elastic skin?
The first effect of surface tension is to make a liquid
'curl up' so as to reduce its surface area to the smallest
possible value - thus small drops left to themselves be-
come spheres. What would happen to these spheres if
there were not repulsive forces, as well as attractive forces,
between the atoms?
When a liquid is in contact with a solid, a great deal
depends on whether or not it wets the solid. If the attrac-
tive forces between the solid and the liquid are greater
than those between the molecules of the liquid, then the
liquid wets the solid, and it tries to spread out all over
the solid to make the area of contact as large as possible.
But if the forces of attraction between the molecules of
the liquid are greater than those between the liquid and
the solid, the liquid wants to have nothing to do with the
solid and retreats so that the area of contact is as small as
possible. Water will wet a clean surface but not a greasy
one.
26(a) Water wets glass and rises in a
capillary tube. On the right is a drop of
water.
26(b) Mercury does not wet glass and
falls in a capillary tube. On the right is
a drop of mercury.
26(a)
26(h)
30
Sometimes wetting is a good thing, and to help it come
about we can add something to the liquid to reduce the
surface tension. Soap has this effect with water. If the
COHESIVE
FORCES
stuff which is added does not mix with the liquid, but sits
on the surface, a very small quantity will spread out over
a large area, like oil on water. Such substances make
economical wetting agents.
27 The addition of a little of the
wetting agent 'Teepol' reduces surface
tension and enables the water to wet
the card.
water and 'Teepol' pure water
28 Mosquito larva floating in water.
Sometimes we want to prevent wetting - then it may
help to cover the solid with something which does not
attract the liquid. Grease and wax and 'silicone' all have
this effect with water.
Something to think about
What must you do to waterproof a fabric or a tent? How could you prevent
water soaking through the brickwork of a house?
When a photograph is developed, it must be soaked in a special solution.
How could you make sure that the developing solution can get to all parts of
the photograph?
What effect do you think camphor has on the surface tension of water?
(Think of your camphor boat.)
Surface tension plays a part in quite a lot of every-
day activities; in washing up and keeping dry, for example.
It is important to the workman who wants to solder two
pieces of metal together, because he must make sure the
solder 'wets' the metal. It is also important in Nature.
Very small organisms like water boatmen and mosquito
larvae make use of it to keep themselves floating on the
surface of a pond. What do you think we should do to the
water to get rid of mosquitoes?
31
ELECTRIC
AND
MAGNETIC
FORCES
29(a)
29(8) Dust sticks to the wall by electro-
static attraction.
29(b) Model of electrostatic dust preci-
pitator used to remove dust from the
smoke emitted by power stations. High-
voltage equipment is shown above. Dust
is attracted to charged wires and shaken
off mechanically to fall through the
hoppers below.
30 Cathode-ray oscilloscope, in which
electrons which produce a picture are
moved by electrical forces.
31 Early electroscope. The gold leaf
moves under the influence of electrical
forces and reveals the presence of elec-
tric charges.
32 William Gilbert.
32
Have you ever played with a magnet, or better still, with
two magnets? Magnetic forces are very striking and quite
different from the forces we have considered so far. Prob-
ably, too, you will have picked up little pieces of dust with
a plastic comb rubbed on your handkerchief or heard a
nylon garment crackle as you take it off. These are ex-
amples of electric force. The ancient Greeks knew about
electric and magnetic forces more than two thousand years
ago, although it is only in the last hundred years that man-
kind has really made use of them. Our word 'electricity'
comes from a Greek word 'electron', which means amber.
Amber is a hard fossil resin, from prehistoric trees. It is
a natural plastic which was used by the Greeks for making
ornaments, and they noticed that when it was rubbed it
attracted small objects to itself.
29(b)
30
31
32
The forces produced by permanent magnets are rather
small. Can you think of any uses for them, apart from the
magnetic compass? There are a few, but they are not very
important. Electrical forces are also very small and not
very obvious, and they do not have very many direct uses.
A few are illustrated in the pictures.
Points to think about
In what sort of ways are electrical and magnetic forces alike? How are they
different? Are they like gravity? Can you think of two important differences
between them and gravity?
Can any material, or only plastics and insulators, be electrified by rubbing?
What about a piece of metal if you hold it with a piece of plastic? Why do we
not usually notice electrical forces unless we look for them specially?
Can electrical forces act through a piece of paper? Can magnetic forces?
Can gravitational forces? Can a magnet placed inside a 'tin' box produce a
force outside the box?
MAGNETIC FORCES
It is sometimes said that William Gilbert, who lived from
1540 to 1603 and was Queen Elizabeth's doctor, was the
first modern scientist. He became famous for the experi-
ments he did on electricity and magnetism. This was the
time when sailors were making great voyages of discovery
to unknown parts of the world. One of their great diffi-
culties was to know where they were and in what direction
they should go. The magnetic compass was a great help to
them in all this. William Gilbert listened to stories of their
experiences and tried to find out more about how a com-
pass worked, to help them find their way more accurately.
Do you think he did all this mainly because he wanted to
be useful, or because he was curious about magnets and
compasses? These are both powerful reasons for studying
science and no one knows which is the most important.
When William Gilbert did these experiments, and many
others like them, he did not have strong permanent
magnets to work with, only lumps of lodestone, that is,
lumps of iron ore which happened to be magnetised.
Lodestones are only slightly magnetised, and this made
his experiments very difficult to carry out successfully.
Some of his most important experiments were carried out
with a sphere of lodestone, which he called a 'Terrella',
or 'Little Earth'.
33
33
N

N
33 (a) Compass direction finding on
Terrel/a. (b) Compass needle on its side
near Terrella. (c) Magnetising a knit-
ting needle.
34 Diagram from Gilbert's book, 'De
Magnete', published in 1600, showing
the direction taken up by a compass
needle at different points on the Ter-
rella.
34
Something to do
You can try some of William Gilbert's experiments for yourself. You need a
strong magnet, some nails, a steel knitting needle, some cotton, a plotting
compass, a small magnet and some plasticine.
See how many nails you can hang from your magnet in a long chain. Does
it help to join the chain up to the other pole of the magnet? What happens to
the nails when they are in contact with the magnet?
In which direction does the compass needle point when it is a long way
away from all magnets? What happens to it when a magnet is fairly near?
How does the direction of the compass depend on whereabouts it is near the
magnet?
Hang up the knitting needle from its centre. Does it hang horizontally? If
necessary, move the cotton until it is horizontal. Now magnetise it by stroking
with the magnet. Move the magnet gently along the needle, just touching it.
Do not disturb the cotton. How can you make sure it is magnetised? Hang it
up again. What happens now? What sort of a force is acting on it?
You can make a Terrella as follows. Put the small magnet in the middle
of a lump of plasticine and roll it into a sphere. Now see what happens to the
direction of the compass needle when you place it at various positions on your
sphere. Is it anything like what happens to a compass needle at various places
on the Earth?
Turn the compass on its side so that the edge of its case just touches the
plasticine. What is its direction now? Is it anything like the hanging knitting
needle?
Do you think you now know what the Earth's magnetic field, which makes a
compass point North and South, is like? The ends of a magnet, where the
magnetism appears to be, are called its poles. The pole of a compass needle
which points towards the North is called a North pole. Do two North poles
attract or repel each other? If the Earth has a magnet inside it, what sort of
pole must it have at its geographical North end?
ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCES
Although electrical and magnetic forces occurring natur-
ally are very small, the magnetic forces produced by an
electric current - electromagnetic forces - can be very
large. Have you ever made a magnet by winding some in-
sulated wire round a nail and connecting the ends to a
battery? How do we know that this is a magnetic force?
The pictures show some of the uses made of electro-
magnetic forces.
Electrical and electromagnetic forces are perhaps the
most important forces of all. We now know that all matter
consists of atoms and that atoms are composed of electri-
cally charged particles. A complete atom has as much
negative charge as positive charge, so the two kinds of
charge very nearly cancel out. That is why electric forces
usually seem so small. It is only when a few atoms have
ELECTRIC AND
MAGNETIC
FORCES
35
35 The electric motor, the loudspeaker
and the relay represent three common
uses oj electromagneticforces. Electric
motors of all shapes and sizes are very
widely used in industry, in transport, in
the home and many other places.
36 Electromagnet in use in a scrap-
metal yardfor crushing purposes. 36
been partly broken up and lost some of their electric
charge that electric forces can come into play on a scale
large enough for us to see.
But the electrical forces between one atom and its next-
door neighbour can be very large. These forces enable
atoms to join together to form molecules and chemical
compounds. The whole of chemistry depends on electrical
forces. They also stick the atoms in a solid or liquid
together, so cohesive forces are really electrical in
nature; if atoms are squeezed too tightly together, other
electrical forces try to push them apart again. Remember
that electrical forces can repel as well as attract. So most
of the forces we have talked about so far, except gravita-
tional forces, are really electrical.
Understanding how these electrical forces can cause
cohesion, elasticity and friction helps engineers and
scientists to control these forces and make them perform
useful functions. A great deal of modern scientific research
is devoted to this.
Something to think about
What happens when two bodies collide? Do they really come in contact? Or
do the electrical forces between them really produce an action at a distance
like gravity?
35
MUSCULAR
FORCES
When we think about forces, we probably think first of all
of the forces we can exert with our own bodies - by our
muscles. Let us think what happens when we contract the
biceps muscle in the arm to raise a weight and then hold
it steady, We can do this quite automatically without
thinking about it at all, but it is really quite a complicated
process.
37 Diagram of biceps and triceps
muscles.
triceps muscle
lowers arm
upper arm
~ ~ o attaching
muscle to bone
36
To understand what happens, it may help first of all to
find out how a muscle differs from some of the other
force-producing devices we have looked at. A stretched
spring can pick up a weight, so perhaps a muscle is some-
thing like a spring. But there is one very important differ-
ence. We can lower our arms again at will, but once a
spring has raised a weight, it cannot be 'turned off' again.
A muscle contraction can be released at will.
Or again, a weight can be held up at the end of a rod
by tying it in place, so perhaps when we hold up a weight
our biceps muscle is something like a string tying the fore-
arm to the shoulder. But a string can go on holding a
weight (that is, exerting a force against gravity) for ever
without getting tired. We quickly want to put down a
heavy weight. A muscle is evidently doing something all
the time it is contracted even if it is not moving.
Clearly there are important differences between a
muscle and a spring or a string, although both these
analogies may occasionally be useful. To find out more
about muscles, we have to look at their detailed structure.
MUSCULAR
FORCES
This has been done by physiologists, who find that every
muscle consists of a bundle of individual fibres, each with
its own nerve. You can see these fibres in the meat you eat.
Normally a fibre is relaxed and quite straight, but when a
nerve impulse arrives it produces a chemical change with-
in the fibre, which causes it to try to contract and become
much shorter. In doing so, it can exert a small force. The
more fibres that contract together, the greater the total
force exerted by the whole muscle. By balancing the forces
in two opposed muscles, like the biceps and the triceps
(which straightens the arm), we can hold our hand steady
wherever we want it. This balancing is done automatically
by our nervous system, so we do not have to think about it.
This is not the whole story. Before long the chemicals
produced by the nerve diffuse, or drift, out of the fibre,
allowing the fibre to relax until another nerve impulse
arrives, when it suddenly contracts again. So our nervous
system can adjust the average force exerted by the whole
muscle, not only by varying the number of fibres which
contract, but also by varying the frequency with which
they contract. The faster they do it (up to about five times
a second, which is as fast as the mechanism will work) the
greater the force. Muscle force is not a static force, like
that in a spring, which requires nothing to maintain it. It
is a dynamic force rather like that produced by a stream
of particles impinging on a surface. No wonder we get
tired when we try to keep up a steady pull for a long time!
Because more fibres contract together at some instants
than at others, the force is not quite steady and we tremble
slightly when we really exert ourselves (don't confuse this
with the shake of your hand produced by the beating of
your heart).
This knowledge of how a muscle works makes it easier
for doctors to find out how to treat muscular disease.
37
FORCES
DUE TO
LIGHT
PRESSURE
38 Apparatus to demonstrate light
pressure. If the light is switched on and
off with the right period, it can set the
foil suspended in a very high vacuum
swinging like a pendulum.
38
The last method of exerting a force which we will discuss
is one which has probably not occurred to you, since it is
far too small to feel or to produce any visible effects in the
everyday world. It is the force exerted by light falling on
a body.
You will probably be surprised to learn that light can
exert a force. Yet there were strong theoretical reasons
for believing this long before it was shown to happen ex-
perimentally. Light is a form of wave motion and all waves
can exert forces. This is fairly obvious in the case of waves
on water, since they can make a floating cork go up and
down. Similarly, a sound wave can make our eardrums
vibrate - or a tin tray vibrate on the piano when it is
played. It is reasonable to suppose light waves should also
exert a force - sometimes called radiation pressure - in the
same sort of way.
Although the force exerted by light is so very small on
FORCES DUE
TO LIGHT
PRESSURE
39 Without radiation pressure to sup-
port it against gravity, the Sun would
shrink until it would appear no bigger
than the circle in the centre.
Earth, so that we are quite unconscious of it, it is very
important in the Sun and other stars. The centre of a star
is very, very hot and gives out intense radiation which
presses upwards on the outer layers. If there were no such
force, all the stars would collapse under their own gravita-
tion to a very small fraction of their present size. The
Universe would then be a very different sort of place and
there would almost certainly be no life anywhere.
At the beginning of this book we said that forces can
only be exerted by one body, or piece of matter, acting on
another. Now we have found that light can exert a force.
Perhaps this means that light is a form of matter too,
although a very different form from the 'billiard balls' we
are used to.
39
SUMMARY
AND
CONCLUSIONS
40
In the first chapter of this book we saw how forces are
responsible for making bodies start to move, for stopping
them once they are moving and for deflecting them from
one direction to another when they are moving.
Very often, however, several different forces can act on
a body in different directions so that they cancel out, and
then there is no starting or stopping, although very strong
forces are acting. Forces which cancel out in this way are
said to be in equilibrium.
Once a body has started to move, it can keep on going
in a straight line at the same speed without the aid of any
force. The only forces on an arrow once it has left the bow
are the resistance of the air and gravity. The former slows
it down slightly. The latter pulls it out of a straight path
but does not alter its speed very much unless it is shot
straight up into the air. There is no force to keep it going
and none is needed.
Whenever we see a body moving at a constant speed in
a straight line, we can be sure that there are no forces
acting on it - or, if there are, that they are in equilibrium.
In fact, because all bodies on Earth are subject to gravity
and almost always to friction, we practically never see
bodies move with truly constant speed in an exact straight
line, but fast-moving bodies like bullets and arrows come
quite close to it. Even so, we must take the pull of gravity
into account when aiming, if we are to hit a distant target.
Something to do
I. Find out how the sights of a rifle work.
2. Watch a ball bearing drop through a viscous liquid like glycerine or treacle.
This is one of the very few situations where the ideal case of constant speed
does occur. Can you see what happens to the forces?
In the rest of the book we talked about the different
kinds of force which occur in nature. Basically, there are
only two':' distinct kinds of force: first, gravity, which
makes every piece of matter in the universe attract every
other piece according to the inverse square law; secondly,
electrical forces, which make electrically charged bodies
"There are actually two more fundamental kinds of force which are concerned
with the nuclei inside atoms, but these have no effect on everyday life, so we can
forget about them unless we are nuclear physicists.
SUMMARY AND
CONCLUSIONS
attract each other if they have unlike charges, or repel
each other if they both have the same kind of charge,
again according to the inverse square law. Both these
forces act across empty space without any material con-
tact between the bodies.
It is much too difficult, however, to work out all the
myriad forces of the world around us just in terms of these
two. It is much simpler to think in terms of several other
types of force.
First, there are the cohesive forces which hold solids
and liquids together and which are the result of equili-
brium between forces of attraction and repulsion between
atoms. These include elastic forces, which come into play
when a body is stretched or compressed or twisted and
which often obey the very convenient Hooke's Law; fric-
tional forces, which occur when one body moves over or
through another; and surface tension, which makes a
liquid appear to be covered with an invisible skin.
Secondly, there are the impact forces, which arise when
a moving body collides with another body and which can
produce the 'rocket' effect. Besides the direct impact of
macroscopic bodies - that is, bodies which are large
enough to be seen or felt - there is the effect of the impact
of innumerable small particles (molecules) which produce
the effects of pressure in a liquid or gas. High pressure
can arise either because the fluid is very hot and therefore
the molecules are moving very fast, or because the fluid
is compressed by a very great weight of other material on
top of it. Towards the centre of the Earth, the pressure
becomes so great that even solid rocks become like a
liquid.
Thirdly, there is the magnetic force which arises be-
tween magnetised pieces of iron and the much more im-
portant electromagnetic force which arises from an electric
current, particularly when it flows through a coil of wire.
A very special case of this type of force is radiation pres-
sure, which is so slight that no human being will ever feel
it, but which, in the fiery furnace of the Sun, is strong
enough to prevent the Sun collapsing under its own weight.
Lastly, there are the forces exerted by living creatures-
muscular forces. They are weak and puny on the cosmic
41
SUMMARY AND
CONCLUSIONS
42
scale, yet vitally important to us and, like almost every-
thing in the biological world, extremely complicated in
the way they work.
There are many ways of measuring forces, but almost
all of them depend on one of two basic principles. We can
weigh a force by balancing it against gravity, or we can
measure the extension it produces in a spring.
WHY WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND FORCES
You may possibly have wondered, from time to time,
why it is worth knowing about all these different kinds
of force. Some people find them interesting in themselves
and are fascinated by working out how the different sorts
of force come about and the consequences of the interplay
of the forces in a complex situation. Most people, how-
ever, want to know what benefit they can get from a piece
of knowledge. There are innumerable benefits to be
gained from a study of forces. If we know the forces act-
ing, then we know how things will move - that is, how
they work and what will happen to them in the future. If
we want to make things happen in a certain way, we must
study the forces involved and adjust them to bring about
our aims. Before we can get a man to the Moon, we need
to know, very precisely, the force of gravity everywhere
along his path, so that we can fire the rocket at just the
right time, and with just the right speed and direction to
get him there safely.
FORCES AND THE ENGINEER
Knowledge and understanding of forces are particularly
important for engineers, and we will conclude by taking
a very brief look at a few of the places where they arise
in engineering.
The first duty of an engineer is to make sure that the
things he builds are strong enough to stand up to the
forces they will experience in normal working without
40 A tensile testing machine, capable
of exerting up to 50 tons force. to
measure the breaking strength ofpieces
of metal. Can you see how the force is
produced?
breaking or falling down. So the first thing the engineer
must do is to measure or calculate these forces. This
immediately poses a problem: what is normal working?
This is something which can be decided only by careful
judgement in the light of past experience. There is no
exact answer. In Great Britain, for instance, we would
not normally need to make a building strong enough to
withstand the force of a 45 m/s wind, because such winds
occur very rarely - perhaps once in a century at anyone
place - and it may seem reasonable to risk the building
failing if such an abnormal hurricane should occur. But
we must build strongly enough to withstand 35 m/s winds,
which do happen every few years.
Once he knows the forces involved, the engineer must
make sure the materials he proposes to use will be strong
enough - or rather, find out what thickness of material
will be strong enough. For this, it is necessary to place
a sample of the material in a testing machine, which will
keep increasing the force until the sample breaks. The
picture shows such a machine. Why do the parts of the
machine have to be so thick?
Another important consideration is to use the smallest
amount of material which will do the job adequately - in
other words, to make the construction as cheap as pos-
sible. This means designing the shape very carefully, so
that the forces are spread out through the whole of the
structure and not concentrated at a few points which
would become especially liable to break. Hundreds, or
thousands, of calculations are needed to find the best
design - a job for a computer. The result is often not only
economical, but strikingly beautiful. The pictures on the
next two pages show a few examples of modern structures
designed to equalise the stresses.
Many of the recent improvements in design have been
made possible by the use of materials which have been
invented in the last few years by pure scientists. It is now
possible to produce 'tailor-made' materials which will
stand up to large forces under arduous conditions, with-
out needing great thickness. You can read about some of
these in the companion volume in this series on Materials.
Notice, in particular, how much stronger reinforced or
43
41 Flying buttresses at Westminster 41
Abbey. These add much to the appear-
ance ofthe building. but they are mainly
there for a purpose. Without them the
roof would collapse. Can you see why?
42 Roman Catholic Cathedral, Liver-
pool, opened 1967. This is an outstand-
ing example ofa modern building made
possible by new materials. Notice how
cleverlythe reinforced concrete ribs have
heen used, hoth to support the building
and to lead the eye up to the crown.
43 The Forth Road Bridge, Scotland,
opened 1966. Can you see how the
weight of the bridge is supported? The
designers also had to make sure the
bridge will not blow down in a high
wind. Models were tested in a wind
tunnel.
44
44
44 Prestressed concrete beams being
used in bridge construction. Can you
see the reinforcing wires, which have
been stretched so as to keep the whole
beam in compression? Why does this
make the beams stronger, and why are
no wires needed in the middle of the
beam? What are the loops at the ends
of the beams/or?
45 Wagondrifi Dam, Natal, built 1965.
Can you see how the shape ofthe dam,
which is 30 m high, helps to support
the weight oftne water?
45
prestressed concrete is than plain concrete, because the
reinforcing bars can take up the forces where the concrete
is weak and vice versa.
These examples are taken from civil engineering,
where the forces involved are static forces, due to the
weight of the structure. It becomes much more difficult
to calculate the forces when movement is involved, be-
cause all sorts of dynamic forces, due to the starting, stop-
ping or deflection of the parts, come into play.
As an example, consider the forces acting in and on a
bicycle. Besides the weight of the rider and the upthrust
of the road, there is one set of forces which keeps the
bicycle going along a straight road, another set which
enables it to turn a corner and yet another set to stop it.
Something to do
See if you can make a list of the various forces acting in a bicycle.
45
SUMMARY AND
CONCLUSIONS
46 Some of theforces involvedin riding
a bicycle. Why is the horizontal force
on the front tyre in the opposite direc-
tion to that on the back tyre?
gravity on rider
tension
in chain
chain
on
wheel
1hand on handlebar
bike on wheel
46
The rider presses down on the pedals, and the force on
the pedals is transmitted through the chain wheel and the
chain to the back wheel. This force, together with friction
between the tyre and the ground, pushes the bicycle
along.
When he wants to turn, the rider applies a force to the
handlebars, which causes the front wheel to turn and the
bicycle follows in the new direction. But this is not all. A
lot of the steering is brought about by the rider leaning
inwards, so that part of his weight makes him 'fall' round
the circle. Dynamic forces can be quite complicated.
When he wants to stop, the rider applies a force to the
brake lever, which is transmitted through the cable to the
brake blocks, which squeeze the wheel and cause friction.
The friction between wheel and brake blocks, plus the
friction between tyre and road, brings the bicycle to rest.
Designing a bicycle which will stand up to all these
forces, even with a heavy rider, and still be light and easy
to propel, as well as good-looking, is no easy task, and
there are other problems as well. The bicycle must ride
easily over bumps in the road and the gear ratio must be
right - both of which involve forces again. Probably the
ideal bicycle has yet to be designed. There is a prize on
offer, which has not yet been won, for a really good bicycle
design.
. J ~
tyre on ground
~ 1
ground on tvre
twist in
shaft
pressure in brake fluid
presses brake shoes
against brake drums
force on
brake pedal
SUMMARY AND
CONCLUSIONS
47 Some of the forces involved in
driving a car.
Something to do
Make a list of some of the forces involved in a motor car or a boat or an
aeroplane. What do you think are the most important points the designers of
these vehicles have to take care of?
Luckily, when it comes to designing complicated
machinery it is possible to deal with each part separately,
so that one man can concentrate on the engine, another
on the clutch, another on the gearbox and another on the
seats (yes, even everyday things like seats need careful
design if they are to be efficient). Without this division of
labour, it is unlikely that engineering design would ever
get very far.
Something to think about
Would you rather be a pure scientist who finds out how things work and how
to make new materials, or an engineer who designs and builds the equipment
needed by other people? Both are important in the modern world, but most
people are better suited to be one of these rather than the other.
CONCLUSION
I hope you have enjoyed this little book on Forces and
now find that there is more to the world than you had
realised before. When you see things moving, or come
47
SUMMARY AND
CONCLUSIONS
48
across great engineering structures, ask yourself, 'What
are the forces involved in this?' The answer will some-
times surprise you.
Here is a little conundrum. Which twin is pulling which?
Do all forces act both ways like this?