hey guys,just out of curiosity,can we apply this mechanical advantage stuff to multiply the forces in machines like gears and pulleys etc??

That's exactly what these machines are designed to do: Make one's life easyer. i.e. you can do things with less force. But remember: you are paying for this advantage: you have to apply the force over a larger distance, because the work has to stay the same. Look at the video at 2:50

I paused the video and since 7*35/5=7*7=49, can he lift a 49 N weight if he is exerting 7 N of force and is 35 meters away from the fulcrum while the weight will be placed 5 meters from the fulcrum?

technically, he can't, because it would only be in equilibrium with 49N, but any force above that would be used to lift the weight. However, this still is constrained by conservation of energy, as he must move his side of the lever down about 5 times as much than the distance he lifts the weight.

What happens if you add to much force? For example, from 4:28 on, what would happen to a 42N weight?

The weight would accelerate upwards until gravity brings it back down. It would "jump", as you can try with any lever in real life.

Is this concept having any relation with Newton's third law of motion?

Not in the way you are thinking. Yes, when you push down on the lever, the other end goes up, but Newtons 3rd law is stating that when you push down on the lever, you are being pushed up with the same force you apply.

Does anybody know where I can find mechanical energy? I need to know how to determine mechanical energy at a certain point above earth's surface, and it's a different formula than the traditional Wm=Wp+Wk, as it deals with the gravitational field around earth. I thought that this may be where I would find answers, but it's not. Please help.

Watch sal's vids on work and energy potential energy for points not too far from earth's surface is just mgh If you are going further away, so that the change in the g field matters, then you need to use GmM/r

How do you incorporate the mass of the lever in the calculation since it too plays a role. My mind tells me that it plays a larger role as the fulcrum is moved further from the center. Thanks

You would need to know the dimensions of the lever and it's density. Then you could calculate the centre of mass of each half, assume that the entire mass was being acted on through this point and include it in the calculations that way. Of course, if it is a very thick lever it gets even more complex since the movement of the lever would also change the centre of mass of each part of the lever to a greater degree depending on the thickness. For these reasons we often assume the lever to be without mass, or perfectly symmetrical and very thin unless it is a real world problem that needs a more realistic solution.

At 3:14 Sal says that energy cannot be made out of thin air. But what about if the machine is 101% efficient , say the finsurd's perpectum machine. Perpetual motion?

Energy cannot be created out of thin air, so you know that any machine that claims to be 101% efficient is a fraud or a trick.

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Physics library

Course: Physics library > Unit 5

Lesson 3: Mechanical advantage

Mechanical advantage (part 2)

Name: Mechanical advantage (part 2)
Uploaded: 2011-02-20T16:49:34Z
Description: More on mechanical advantage, levers and moments.

Google Classroom

More on mechanical advantage, levers and moments. Created by Sal Khan.

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Sir Ardent Inferno
Posted 10 years ago. Direct link to Sir Ardent Inferno's post “hey guys,just out of curi...”
hey guys,just out of curiosity,can we apply this mechanical advantage stuff to multiply the forces in machines like gears and pulleys etc??
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(13 votes)
Answer
- Reinhard Grünwald
  Posted 10 years ago. Direct link to Reinhard Grünwald's post “That's exactly what these...”
  That's exactly what these machines are designed to do:
  Make one's life easyer. i.e. you can do things with less force.
  But remember: you are paying for this advantage: you have to apply the force over a larger distance, because the work has to stay the same. Look at the video at
  2:50
  Button navigates to signup page
  (15 votes)
dannyquil
Posted 11 years ago. Direct link to dannyquil's post “I paused the video and si...”
I paused the video and since 7*35/5=7*7=49, can he lift a 49 N weight if he is exerting 7 N of force and is 35 meters away from the fulcrum while the weight will be placed 5 meters from the fulcrum?
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(5 votes)
Answer
- Derek Edrich
  Posted 11 years ago. Direct link to Derek Edrich's post “technically, he can't, be...”
  technically, he can't, because it would only be in equilibrium with 49N, but any force above that would be used to lift the weight. However, this still is constrained by conservation of energy, as he must move his side of the lever down about 5 times as much than the distance he lifts the weight.
  Button navigates to signup page
  (9 votes)
bennette1916
Posted 11 years ago. Direct link to bennette1916's post “What happens if you add t...”
What happens if you add to much force?
For example, from
4:28
on, what would happen to a 42N weight?
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(4 votes)
Answer
- Danielle
  Posted 11 years ago. Direct link to Danielle's post “The weight would accelera...”
  The weight would accelerate upwards until gravity brings it back down. It would "jump", as you can try with any lever in real life.
  Button navigates to signup page
  (6 votes)
devanshi
Posted 10 years ago. Direct link to devanshi's post “Is this concept having an...”
Is this concept having any relation with Newton's third law of motion?
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(3 votes)
Answer
- Jigglepirate
  Posted 10 years ago. Direct link to Jigglepirate's post “Not in the way you are th...”
  Not in the way you are thinking. Yes, when you push down on the lever, the other end goes up, but Newtons 3rd law is stating that when you push down on the lever, you are being pushed up with the same force you apply.
  Comment on Jigglepirate's post “Not in the way you are th...”
  (6 votes)
Andrew Dabson
Posted 11 years ago. Direct link to Andrew Dabson's post “4:30 anyone else think th...”
4:30
anyone else think that the force be drawn perpendicular to the lever and not directly down? It may be an ok as an approximation, but my impression was Moment = (distance * force perpendicular)
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(3 votes)
Answer
- Irina Bucur
  Posted 11 years ago. Direct link to Irina Bucur's post “Just wondering...does mec...”
  Just wondering...does mechanical advantage affect energy?
  Comment on Irina Bucur's post “Just wondering...does mec...”
  (1 vote)
Trystan Edgar
Posted 10 years ago. Direct link to Trystan Edgar's post “Does anybody know where I...”
Does anybody know where I can find mechanical energy? I need to know how to determine mechanical energy at a certain point above earth's surface, and it's a different formula than the traditional Wm=Wp+Wk, as it deals with the gravitational field around earth. I thought that this may be where I would find answers, but it's not. Please help.
Button navigates to signup pageButton navigates to signup page
(2 votes)
Answer
Jason Froehle
Posted 10 years ago. Direct link to Jason Froehle's post “How do you incorporate th...”
How do you incorporate the mass of the lever in the calculation since it too plays a role. My mind tells me that it plays a larger role as the fulcrum is moved further from the center. Thanks
Button navigates to signup pageButton navigates to signup page
(2 votes)
Answer
- MA
  Posted 10 years ago. Direct link to MA's post “You would need to know th...”
  You would need to know the dimensions of the lever and it's density. Then you could calculate the centre of mass of each half, assume that the entire mass was being acted on through this point and include it in the calculations that way. Of course, if it is a very thick lever it gets even more complex since the movement of the lever would also change the centre of mass of each part of the lever to a greater degree depending on the thickness. For these reasons we often assume the lever to be without mass, or perfectly symmetrical and very thin unless it is a real world problem that needs a more realistic solution.
  Button navigates to signup page
  (2 votes)
Ethan Dlugie
Posted 11 years ago. Direct link to Ethan Dlugie's post “Does the basic F*d=F*d eq...”
Does the basic F*d=F*d equation work for other classes of levers? That is, when the fulcrum is not between the force and the load?
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(2 votes)
Answer
- zrod69
  Posted 9 years ago. Direct link to zrod69's post “Okay, i don't know if I a...”
  Okay, i don't know if I am fully qualified to answer this question, but I believe what you are referring is a system similar to a wheelbarrow. I believe it will act in a very similar way. The way to visualize this is by looking at the distance the weight on the wheel barrow is moving up and compare to the distance the handle you are holding on is going up. So a weight of 3N one meter away from the wheel, being lifted .1m and handles that are 3m long would require an upwards force greater than 1N to lift it, and 1N to maintain equilibrium to a height of .3m. You increased the distance the force had to travel by 3 times so the force is cut by one third and the amount of work is conserved. The key is F*D=F*D work in = work out. Someone please corroborate this or correct me if I am wrong.
  Button navigates to signup page
  (1 vote)
francessofiasemail
Posted 10 years ago. Direct link to francessofiasemail's post “In general ho w would you...”
In general ho w would you find the mechanical advantage if you knew the weight of the load, and the lengths from both ends to the fulcrum?
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(2 votes)
Answer
Ruel12
Posted 7 years ago. Direct link to Ruel12's post “At 3:14 Sal says that ene...”
At
3:14
Sal says that energy cannot be made out of thin air.
But what about if the machine is 101% efficient , say the finsurd's perpectum machine.
Perpetual motion?
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(1 vote)
Answer
- Andrew M
  Posted 7 years ago. Direct link to Andrew M's post “Energy cannot be created ...”
  Energy cannot be created out of thin air, so you know that any machine that claims to be 101% efficient is a fraud or a trick.
  Button navigates to signup page
  (3 votes)

Video transcript

Welcome back. When I left off, I was hurrying a little bit. But we'd hopefully come to the conclusion that if I have a simple lever, like I have here, and I know the distances from where I'm applying the force, to the fulcrum, to the pivot. And I know the distance from the pivot to where the machine is essentially applying the force, the machine being the lever in this situation, I know the relationship between the two forces I'm applying. The input force-- so actually I shouldn't call this a force too, I should call this an input force-- anyway, the input force times the distance from the input force to the fulcrum is equal to the output force times the distance from the output force to the fulcrum. And that all fell out of what we did in the last video. The conservation of energy and that the work in has to equal the work out. And all work is, is a transfer of energy, so the transfer of energy in has to be the transfer of energy out, assuming we have no friction and none of the energy is lost. And how is this useful? Well we could do a bunch of problems with this. Let's say that I have a 100 newton object right here, 100 newtons. And let's say that I know, no matter what I do, my maximum strength that I could push-- well let me draw this a little different-- let's say it's like this, cause of my goal is to lift the 100 newton object. So the 100 newton object is right here. That's a 100 newtons. And let's say I know that the maximum downward force that I'm capable of applying is only 10 newtons, right? So I want my force to be multiplied by 10 to lift this force. So let's figure out what would happen. My input force is 10. And I want to figure out the distance. So let's say my input force is 10. And let's call this the input distance. And I want the output force to be 100, right? And let's call this the output distance. So if I have a fulcrum here, this is the input distance and this is the output distance. Let me switch colors. This is getting monotonous. This is the output distance, from here to here. And let's figure out what the ratio has to be, for the ratio of the input distance to the output distance. Well, if we just divide both sides by 10, we get the distance input. It has to be 10 times the distance output, right? 100 divided by 10. So if the distance from the fulcrum to the weight is, I don't know, 5 meters, then the distance from where I'm applying the force to the fulcrum has to be 10 times that. It has to be 50 meters. So no matter what, the ratio of this length to this length has to be 10. And now what would happen? If I design this machine this way, I will be able to apply 10 newtons here, which is my maximum strength, 10 newtons downwards, and I will lift a 100 newton object. And now what's the trade off though? Nothing just pops out of thin air. The trade off is, is that I am going to have to push down for a much longer distance, for actually 10 times the distance as this object is going to move up. And once again I know that because the work in has to equal the work out. I can't through some magical machine-- and if you were able to invent one, you shouldn't watch this video and you should go build it and become a trillionaire-- but a machine can never generate work out of thin air. Or it can never generate energy out of thin air. That energy has to come from some place. Most machines actually you lose energy to friction or whatever else. But in this situation, if I'm putting in 10 newtons of force times some distance, whatever that quantity is of work, the work cannot change. The total work. It can go down if there is some friction in the system. So let's do another problem. And really they're all kind of the same formula. And then I'll move into a few other types of simple systems. I should use the line tool. We'll make this up on the fly. And you could always create problems where you can compound it further and et cetera, et cetera, using some of the other concepts we've learned. But I won't worry about that right now. So let's say that I'm going to push up here. Well no let me see what I want to do. I want to push down here with a force of-- let's say that this distance right here is 35 meters, this distance is 5 meters-- and let's say I'm going to push down with the force of 7 newtons, and what I want to figure out is how heavy of an object can I lift here. How heavy of an object. Well, all we have to do is use the same formula. But the moments-- and I know I used that word once before, so you might not know what it is-- but the moments on both sides of the fulcrum have to be the same. Or the input moment has to be the output moment. So what's the moment again? Well, the moment is just the force times the distance from the force to the fulcrum. So the input moment is 7 newtons times 35 meters. And realize that that does not work, because the distance this force is traveling is not 35 meters. The distance this force is traveling is something like, here. But this 35 meters is going to be proportional to the distance that this is traveling when you compare it to this other side. So this quantity, 7 newtons times 35 meters, is the moment. And that is going to be equal to the moment on this side, the output moment. So that is equal to 5 meters times the force that I'm lifting, or the lifting force of the machine, times let's say the force out. So we can figure out the force out by just dividing both sides by 5. So let's see, 35 divided by 5 is 7, so you get 7 times 7 equals the force out, or 49 newtons. And you can see that, because you can see that the length of this side of the lever is 7 times the length of this side of the lever. So when you input a force of 7, you output a force of 7 times that. And of course, in order to move the block 1 meter up in this direction, you're going to have to push down for 7 meters. And that's where we know that the input work is equal to the output work. Well anyway hopefully I didn't confuse you and you have a reasonable sense of how levers work. In the next couple of videos, I'll introduce you to other machines, simple machines like a wedge-- I've always had trouble calling a wedge a machine, but it is one-- and pulleys. I'll see you in the next video.