How 'pressure' is a scaler quantity?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mr royal
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Pressure
AI Thread Summary
Pressure is classified as a scalar quantity because it is defined as force per unit area acting perpendicularly to a surface, inherently incorporating direction without needing to be a vector. The definition implies that pressure acts directly against a surface at a 90-degree angle, making the directional aspect clear. This characteristic means that describing pressure as a vector would be unnecessary, as knowing the position already provides the direction. The analogy of a packet of red frogs illustrates this redundancy, emphasizing that the directional information is already contained within the definition of pressure. Thus, pressure remains a scalar quantity in physics.
Mr royal
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
How 'pressure' is a scaler quantity?
 
Physics news on Phys.org


It is a scalar since it is the force per unit area acting perpendicularly to a surface element, so the definition kind of has a direction "built in" if you know what I mean so that the quantity need not contain this directional information.
 


i am not clear...
 


Well pressure is defined as pointing directly against a surface (at 90 degrees) which means that the direction is already defined so making pressure a vector would be redundant since if you know the position you know the direction.
It would be like having a packet of red frogs which have "red" written on each and every one of them, it's redundant.
 
Hi there, im studying nanoscience at the university in Basel. Today I looked at the topic of intertial and non-inertial reference frames and the existence of fictitious forces. I understand that you call forces real in physics if they appear in interplay. Meaning that a force is real when there is the "actio" partner to the "reactio" partner. If this condition is not satisfied the force is not real. I also understand that if you specifically look at non-inertial reference frames you can...
I have recently been really interested in the derivation of Hamiltons Principle. On my research I found that with the term ##m \cdot \frac{d}{dt} (\frac{dr}{dt} \cdot \delta r) = 0## (1) one may derivate ##\delta \int (T - V) dt = 0## (2). The derivation itself I understood quiet good, but what I don't understand is where the equation (1) came from, because in my research it was just given and not derived from anywhere. Does anybody know where (1) comes from or why from it the...
Back
Top