The Scientific Difference Between Force and Pressure and What This Means for How You Should Work
Back in high school, I was learning about force and pressure in physics. Some of you may not remember your high school physics (I didn’t because I had to look it up) so here’s a quick recap: force is an interaction with an object, that if unopposed, will change the motion of an object. For example, you can apply force to a soccer ball by kicking it and it will roll. Or you can apply force to a door and it will push or pull open. Pressure, on the other hand, is the amount of force applied over a certain area. The one thing I remember from the textbook was the difference between force and pressure.
You can apply the same amount of force to a thumbtack and a pencil, say on a piece of paper, and one item will go through the paper (the thumbtack) and the other item will not go through (the pencil). The difference is the amount of pressure being applied. On the thumbtack, you are applying a greater amount of pressure because the area over which the force is being applied (i.e., the tip of the thumbtack) is smaller than the tip of the pencil.
Enough of the science lesson, what you’re wondering is how this applies to you and your work.
